Photography week 5

Memory check – a recap of things we have covered so far

Q1. What is ISO and what does it effect?

The ISO affects the shot resolution, it is the detail of the shots taken. The ISO setting depends on the lighting in a given area. The higher the ISO the more visible something is in dark lighting.

Q2. When would we use the ‘P’ control setting on the camera mode dial.

Program, in this mode we are in control of the ISO as well as the white balance.

Q3. Name two important consideration when attaching the tripod base plate to the bottom of camera? The base plate has two arrows which point in the direction of the lens. The handle has to be tightened so that the camera is secure. Keep the tripod secure, by having the fatter legs out instead of the skinny ones.

Q4. Name three important considerations when using a red-head lighting kit.

No touching the light bulb, as this will release the oils in our skin all over the bulb, destroying it in the process. Turn it off once done to prevent any damage to the light bulb and most importantly you. The red head must not shine into your eyes as it is very bright and it could cause blindness.

Q5. When focusing the camera, what do we place on the 

object/subject to ensure it is the centre of focus? 

The green triangle must be centred on the object. To achieve focus the shutter button must be pressed gently.

Q6. Name two techniques we can use to adjust the brightness and contrast of a photograph? We can limit how much lighting is projected through the aperture mode dial. The ISO is used to insure how your object is prone to lighting.  

Evaluation

Our assignment was based around the freak or unique project. Essentially the final piece was a montage of photographs captured by me, I then had to pick out some of my favourites and include them on a seamless photograph. My idea was to produce several photographs of me posing in a suit and tie with the addition of a horse head mask. I shot this in a variety of different angles, the shots are as followed: front face, sides, back and lastly a seated angle. This idea is similar to what I was doing in my film production groups for the 30 second advert, with a photo shoot instead.

This idea was inspired by some of the research I completed in my week 2 lesson. I mentioned this in my proposal as well; I was primarily inspired by 3 of the 10 images I researched, these are: the man in the horse mask sitting on a chair next to a dog, the man in the gas mask and lastly the man with a nebula background shining off of his helmet. All three of these images have some sort of mask or helmet in common, this was similar to what I was striving for.

Following my proposal I found myself taking approximately 70 photographs. I then picked out the shots which stood out most from all the repeats. I was left with 39 photographs, most of these were edited using the “Levels” and “Curves” functions. Most if not all of the images I edited weren't in contrast, so I darkened some of them while others were simply too dark so I did my best to brighten them up. After that I picked out 2 of my favourites, these were the ones with me facing the camera backwards and the photo in which I was seated from a low angle.

This about the time I had to remove the outline of both of these images. I found this challenging as it took me a long while, the magic wound tool couldn't select the entire background so I had to use the pen tool as a result. The seated shot was the most difficult out of the two: In addition to having to remove the overall outline, I had to crop out the outline inside of the chair. The most challenging was the clean up after the outline, because my photos were taken on grass some of it had gotten unto the shoes for example. To overcome this problem I used the clone stamp tool to successfully select another area of the shoe and insert it over the lingering grass. I had to do this for the both photographs.

I was then able to create my very own seamless background using some of the work I used for my advert. I took the logo and aligned it to the centre, I then hovered over the “Filter” tab, clicked on “Other” and selected “Offset”. I then set the horizontal and vertical pixels to 250, this would evenly spread out my logo in all 4 corners of the rectangle. I then merged all of the layers together, lastly I saved my pattern through “edit” and selecting “define pattern...” to save my pattern into the pattern overlay list. I then added this overlay over my photos to create my final piece. I created 2 variations with the seated photograph, one with the chair and one more with a planet for a chair instead.

No ouline

Pattern template

The pattern with a nebula background

No outline with chair

 

Horse seated angle (planet)

alternative

Photoshop week 4

The goal of this lesson was to create my final freak or unique magazine advert. We started the lesson of by producing a development sketch/ sketches. I had a pretty clear idea of what i was going to make so i only drew one sketch. Ironically enough i had already drawn the main image, which i was going to use for the logo in the first place, so I decided to use it productively. I added a few tweaks here and there, mainly added a bow tie as well as a suit blazer to my horse drawing.

I then had to add a header, slogan, logo and lastly additional information. For the header i used my product's name; "horse master suits", along with the slogan  "ride with pride",his was also parred up with the logo one of our team members produced on Monday. For the additional information i couldn't really think of anything, as i had to improvise, in the end i came up with a cheesy phrase "the ideal suit for horse lovers". Lastly i had to label of this information to make it clear what i was doing. Owen also said that this is how the big designers plan all of their work, not by drawing the main image but stating what it might turn out to be, maybe even add a stick man. I found this particularly  strange as i can't see my self producing something without knowing what I'm aiming for.

The second part was the Photoshop production step, this is what I came up with.

First off I'd like to say that I had to use secondary research, because I hadn't photographed what i needed in the photography lesson. As you can probably tell this magazine advert doesn't match my development sketch. With this i really struggled as I just couldn't find the right images i was looking for. I tried to look for a plain horse head image, but i couldn't find any suit images which would fit the horse. So i switched the style up a bit, and i decided to get a suit image facing side ways, in combination with a horse head which i found previously. I then used the magic wound tool with the pen tool to get rid of unnecessary background filler.I then merged the two images into a human like position facing right with the horse head. I then used the burn tool to darken and shade in certain portions of the image to make it blend in with the lighting. I then found a brick image, which i used the desaturate function on. Lastly I included the text with the product name and the slogan, in addition i placed the logo on the top right.
Looking at it back now, I realise that the magazine advert, doesn't in fact seem like a magazine advert. I also realised that I did a pretty bad job on the font selection, it's really hard to see plus i wanted it to be en carved with the bricks, in which I failed.

I decided I would have my second attempt at producing a magazine advert. This is what I came up
with.                                                            





I'm really proud of what I ended coming up with. I was inspired by this 50 Cent magazine advert, as I was doing my research. All of the colours and some of the layout, I even included a price tag at the bottom near the bar code.

For the additional information i wanted to go with something creative such as "Centaurus your fella' Notts". Compared to the other previous advert i produced this is light years improved in my opinion. With this one I followed the exact same ideas, so a suit image and a horse head combined to make a centaurus looking creature. Hence this is were his name came from.

Faye week 4

This lesson was all about getting things finished as best as possible regarding to the filming on Tuesday. The first thing we completed was the storyboard, It was a written one so I was the one who had to draw all the shots. After that we started designing our own logo. Kai came up with the most appealing logo so we went with it.

Photography week 3

Photography week 3

In today's lesson we learned how to set up our own shutting area, as well as how to set up a Red head to increase the lighting levels. Furthermore we learned how to adjust the lighting levels in our own photographs, we were introduced to the "levels" and the "curves" functions, except I already knew how to use the levels function from my recent experience with Photoshop as I was able to produce a slender ghostly image.

In this lesson we were tasked with a simple instruction really, this was photographing our 6 items/objects we were to bring in as it was given to us as homework from last week. The only problem I faced was that my items didn't match the final product i was going to produce, so I wasn't quite able to picture the final freaky photograph in my head. Instead I brought in 6 of my sister's toys's, which I then had to photograph. We were then split up into small groups where we had to produce our own shutting set from white pieces of paper as the background, this created a continuous effect on the images.

After that it was time to edit these photographs in Photoshop, this lesson was primarily focused on teaching us to alter the lighting from dark to bright while not ruining the image.

This is what I was able to come up with, as you can see , in comparison the originals can't match the edits in colour.

Marissa- week 3

The first task was a continuation from Fay's lesson on Monday. It was a research task, where we had to look at similar adverts we could use to recreate them in a unique or freaky way. Before that however Marissa showed us 3 examples of freak or unique advert styles. The first one was Lynx-fallen angels. This one was particularly unique, as i found that the music matched the scenery and as well as Italy as a country perfectly. The background music was an instrumental song titled "Sexy boy". This created a  Royal/Imperial vibe which suited the angel theme and what the ad was going with. In these ads we had to look at when and how the product is presented, in this case the product was shown at the end of the advert.

The second example was Tango advert- Orangeman which is an advert based in the 90's. It just goes to show you that the same styled ads are still being produced to this day and time. This ad open with 3 guys standing in front of a corner shop, the product is immediately visible as the shot zooms in at one of the guys drinking a can of "Tango".the entire ad is like a football match commentary, with replays and fast forwarding. It shows the same exact shot from before but with the addition of a man dressed in an orange costume. The orange costume represents the flavour of the product.  The orange man runs towards the man drinking, taps him on the back, forcing the man to turn around. In doing so the orange man then slaps him with both hands across the face, this immediately puts the man in shock as his face indicates confusion. This makes the ad hilarious, with the additional commentary in the background (non diegetic). This is followed by another replay from an alternative angle. The advert then ends with the can on top of the orange man's head with the slogan in writing and sound at the back of his head.

The third advert was the Cadbury's Gorilla Advert. This was another advert which I found funny, it is essentially a gorilla playing on drums, as he waits anxiously for the right moment to play his drum part. The product is shown at the beginning, with the logo as well as slogan both present. I also found it funny because the advert itself has nothing to do with the actual product.



We were then off in or groups to look at adds which inspired us or represented our product. Because we were mostly confident in our idea/concept, we only looked at ads similar to our product. So we focused on fashion, and suit adverts. We struggled however, as most of the adverts we looked at were over a minute long some were even exceeded the 2 minute mark. Furthermore there weren't a large variety of adds to look at so we were limited in video material. We found it even more difficult, as our idea surpassed most of the advert in our class when it came to creativity, the ideas were mostly limited to drinks and food.

The second task was to go out and pick out up to 3 locations where we would film our own adverts. We were given 3 sheets, a check list basically for assessing our locations, a health and safety risk assessment.  The first location we used was a place called "Narnia" just outside the campus, it was a location filled with gravestones, we were only interested in the nature, as we planned to use it in our advert.   The second location was inside the campus, it was the long hall just besides the reception area, we planned to use this location for the opening shots. However it was very busy so we don't know if we are going to be using this location when it comes to filming next week. the third and final location was just outside the Lace market's car park. We planned to use this location the most out of all three of these. We also had to take pictures of these locations, unfortunately I don't have the images that we took.

We were also tasked with producing our own proposal for the advert we'll be making. This is the proposal.

Advert proposal

We have decided as a group that we are going to be producing an advert based around a suit.

We are going to be producing a suit advert, however to make it seem more unique and a bit freaky we are using a horse mask in the mix.
With that being said we came up with a matching product name which is "Horse Master suits". We thought about starting the advert off,
with a slow motion shot of the suit,(this would introduce the audience with our product) It would show the actor putting it on from several angles
for a greater effect. He'd then put the horse mask on, this would be the twist i was talking about before;
it would interest people more rather than showing another suit advert. We would also consider using use black and white effects for a more sharp look. The green screen is another concept we would like to consider, for the closing shot. We are planning to use a voice over at the beginning and at the end; for example “Every man, Every horse…Should own this suit” as our trademark quote. For the slogan we came up with the name "ride with pride" which was decided through the concept of horseback riding, meaning wear with pride instead.

We are only going to be using 1 actor and that actor is me. I'm the one bringing all the props including he horse mask and the suit.

Our product in aimed at young adults as the horse mask is considered inappropriate, therefore this will attract the younger audiences aged 16-20.



Lastly when we came back we started composing our story board, I believe we were the only group using the sheet based storyboard instead of the website one. I was the artist for all of the imagery, furthermore I was also giving suggestions and taking in information from the group, in which I would also add my own ideas. Sadly we didn't have enough time to finish it.

Freak or unique advert research.

Today we've been put into video production groups, in which the overall goal is to produce a freaky or unique advert. Our group, group 3 consists of me, Kai, Eden and Taylor. As a group we had to introduce ourselves, and state our key skills, the ones we are strong at. Unfortunately one of our team members was absent. Kai is really good at Photoshop, while I'm good at drawing, and that's a good balance to have, furthermore Eden specializes in make-up, which is a very useful skill to have for this specific project, we could use this for creepy face paints etc. Our main idea for this project is to create a suit advert, but with a horse mask in the mix for that unique twist.

The second task in our group was to research freaky adverts, which we could consider using ourselves, and incorporate some of these ideas in our final product.
 "GOLD BOND LIQUI-SHAQ" - TV SHERIFF VIDEO REMIX
This was the first advert we looked at, and it is nothing like I've ever seen before. It is a parody of an existing advert, so it uses the original footage in a different way. This advert is very strange in general, so i can't really explain what I'm looking at exactly, you really have to see it to understand. From what it appears as it is some sort of face morphing effect.


Little Baby's Ice Cream "This is a Special Time"
In this advert the actor poses in front of the camera, creating a mid shot. The actor appears to be a woman covered in ice cream.  She then proceeds by picking up a spoon, and begins eating ice cream off her head. This is most certainly the most cringe worthy advert on TV. This creates a quite disturbing and freaky effect on the viewer. Therefore this is one of the best examples of  using creativity in attracting the audience.

Scary BANNED McDonalds Ad! This is a McDonald ad parody, which advertises the happy meal for kids. The ad starts of in a car where two kids are sitting, the voice over then starts, "with your next happy meal , get a free Ronald McDonald!". Donald appears instantaneously in between the 2 kids. At the start the advert seems to be normal, but freaky regardless. The advert sends out this weird vibe as Ronald is port-raid as being a pedophile, as if he had taken the kids captive. This is followed by a series of shots, which includes Ronald and kids having fun washing dishes etc. The non diegetic voice over states the advantages of having Ronald in your house; "he'll drive to school" for example. But what really makes this advert creepy is the voice over saying "he'll even bathe your kids!"  The advert takes a drastic change at 0:50 when Ronald freaks out. The lighting changes the tone changes even the speed of the shots slow down. Everything goes from all happy with high key lighting to deeply disturbing with low key lighting. The camera then shows the behind the scenes of the director and camera man, In which they exclaim that this scene was not apart of the script. Ronald goes on a rampage, he starts picking fights with everyone, when he punches the kid several times in the face. From this point on the advert is extremely entertaining, as I laughed out loud a couple of times. this was the advert we thought was going to represent our group advert the most, as we want to go with this funny style.


For the final task we had to brainstorm our ideas for the TV advert. In the end we went with the horse mask, suit advert idea, just like i mentioned before. We came up with the name "horse master suits", as it reflects our product and the brand.For the slogan we thought of something that would match both concepts, the horse mask and the suit."Ride it with pride" is what we decided to go with after numerous attempts at phrasing the same words differently. "Ride it" because, as you know horses are used as transport, and "ride it" is used as a metaphor for wear it.