Digital Photography and Imaging - Project 4 (Final)
2/12/24 - 30/12/24 / Week 11 - Week 14 Brendan Fedya / 0376283 Digital
Photography and Imaging / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media /
Taylor's University
Firstly we were tasked to explore more about ourselves, as this will help a lot with the self-expression digital art we're going to do. So, here's the biography of myself, and the design direction that I'm going to make:
INTRO
Tell us about yourself
My name’s Brendan and I’m from Indonesia, I am a first year Bachelor of Creative Media student at Taylor’s University. Since I entered university, I have spent a lot of time around the campus, embracing campus life! But most importantly, working on the loads of assignments that we have. I guess I should be proud of finally being productive after the endless break following my high school graduation.
PARAGRAPH 1
What is your passion?
I suppose people’s passions change everyday. When I was a kid, I aspired to become an astronaut, but as I grew older I realized it was all just a childhood imagination. Then again, back at school, I wanted to be a chef, but soon I discovered I only liked eating those delicious foods, not cooking or making them. It wasn’t until I was older, right before I graduate, that I realize my passion lies in design, that’s why I enrolled in this course in the first place. Looking back, I always loved arts like drawing, music, making sculptures without even realizing it. Even now, l enjoy visiting art exhibitions, movie theaters, music operas. I believe art plays a crucial role in helping people to express their emotions, and perhaps this is why I’m so drawn to it. Who knows? Maybe my passion will change again someday like I did before, lets just see how life takes us in the future!
PARAGRAPH 2
What has motivated you to achieve your dream?
Since I was little, I have always been inspired by the power of how art and some seemingly ordinary designs could connect with people in an emotional level. Seeing how art could make smiles in people faces and inspire people, this makes me become more determined to pursue a career in my passion, and to make a meaningful impact for them.
SUMMARY
How do you want to visualize your dream into an artwork?
If I would to connect my dream with the artwork I would make later, maybe I will use a simple design, but something with a deep meaning that could convey a lot of emotions. I hope that my design could leave a lasting impression to people’s hearts.
And this is the concept that I plan to do:
INTRO
Tell us about your work
I wanted to do something that could connect dreams and reality in some way, I think featuring illusionary and ethereal elements would fit, so it could portray a feeling of a “transcending through time.”
PARAGRAPH 1
What is the concept behind it?
The concept is everything around the world is always changing, so we should not think too much and just enjoy the present moment. So I would make movements like smooth flowing animations, fading elements, and some subtle motions to represent the time is shifting in the background.
PARAGRAPH 2
What is the message that you want people to understand it?
I wanted people to know that even the smallest things could create a very meaningful impact on us.
SUMMARY
What is your motto / quote?
You only live once, make it count.
I also found references for my poster development, which Mr. Fauzi will give feedback to later on:
Mr. Fauzi suggested me to go with the third reference, but I don't have good photography elements to incorporate a shot like that. As a result, I went with the second one, because I had a picture with a similar pose. However, I am focusing on doing silhouettes of my figure rather than shadows like the reference.
I did my sketch in Procreate, and because we had to do surrealism, my concept initially used red strings, engulfing then flying away from me, but I'm afraid that the animation is very complicated, so I shifted into using an antique clock. Clocks also resembles time more effectively.
Figure 3.2: Poster sketches, Week 11 (3/12/24).
I began my poster using Photoshop, masked my own image using the techniques I've learnt before in class. Here are my raw images that I'm going to use later on:
Figure 3.3: Raw images, Week 11 (04/12/24).
I made silhouettes seemingly fading away from the main figure, similar to the sketch. Also, I searched for wind textures to further complement the background and adding depth to my figure.
Figure 3.4: Masking objects and making layout, Week 11 (04/12/24).
Adjusted the curves for the wind, and adding the bird near the eye. these elements give the impression of 'fleeting time' very well, and it's also for animation purposes, so that I will have more elements to work with later on. Additionally, adding an antique clock in the background makes it more surrealistic which relates more to the task.
Figure 3.5: Adjusting curves and additional elements, Week 11 (04/12/24).
Surrealism designs are quite abstract, so I believe adding noise would enhance the atmosphere. I tested it out and found out it really improved the overall aesthetic.
Figure 3.6: Adding noise, Week 11 (04/12/24).
In my opinion, the design is still not surrealistic enough. So, I utilized the main figure's eye to create something like a gateway for the birds to fly through, using clipping mask techniques.
Figure 3.7: Using clipping mask, Week 11 (05/12/24).
Based on the feedback from Mr. Fauzi for the animation phase later on, he suggested that I put clock needles that could move instead, rather than moving the whole clock by itself. So, I went with his suggestion.
I added some minor elements and also put text for the design, as referred to like my third reference. I found a script font called Dream Orphans from Dafont, and I used glow effects to match the background.
Figure 3.8: Adding text and animation elements, Week 11 (07/12/24).
This poster expresses that our reality and dreams often clash. That’s life, isn’t it? It’s always unpredictable and full of contradictions. Life isn’t about avoiding the clash, but rather we should learn to live with it. We don’t always get what we want, but somehow, we keep moving forward. That’s the true meaning of life, and we should embrace it.
After we've done with our poster, we were told to get it animated into a 15 seconds short video using simple edits that have been taught before.
The first thing I did is make the clock needles move. Firstly I moved the anchor points into the middle of the clock, then I used transform rotation to move the clock, the longer hand should move significantly faster than the short hand, similar to a real time clock. I made the rotation very fast to hint the time is warping at an unnatural speed.
Figure 3.10: Rotating clock, Week 12 (11/12/24).
I adjusted the position of my doppelgangers, making them moving very slow in contrast of the clock. This is to describe that the main figure is out of sync from the flow of time, also to make the viewers focus more on the main subject.
The concept I used for this poster is about the past, present, and future merging into a single imaginary state, hence the usage of dreamlike elements in the poster (blurry figures, abstract clocks, etc.)
The accelerating clock along with the gusting winds represents the distortion of time, with the birds seemingly soaring through time and space. This represents that there are limitless possibilities in life out there, so we should keep embracing our dreams and face every obstacles.
The birds coming out through my eyes symbolizes my aspirations of the future. As they flew further away, this is a reflection of me, forgetting about the past, and moving on to the future.
As for the audio choice, I chose something that conveys an ethereal atmosphere, which are choral arrangements. Also, it has rhythming beats that align very well with the ticking time.
This is the final project of the module, and we've already learn a lot in using Adobe Photoshop throughout the semester. Therefore, doing this task is like making use of our full knowledge on Photoshop, which then we apply it into this task.
For the poster, it is very manageable, because most of our tasks in this modules consist of making posters. Doing animation was somewhat challenging, we are very new to After Effects, and we are already tasked to make a video composition with it. It's challenging to imagine how our animation directon is going to be, and thinking to apply it with our limited knowledge of After Effects.
However, the submission requirements are also not that complicated, as we're only asked to use simple tools for it. Because of this, the learning process was quite fun, especially when we're going to pick our song for our composition, it's a new thing for us. Because of that, it improved the mood of our poster drastically. We explored a lot about After Effects by ourselves, sometimes we even experiment on tools that are still not taught, like the puppet tool for example.
I like the theme of this task, it requires us to reflect more upon ourselves, and express it through our artworks. In my opinion, communicating through our artwork is a very important thing to do, as artworks are made to be shown to others. On top of that, design students are mostly introverts, they can't express themselves very well, but this task will allow us to challenge ourselves to share ideas that we usually struggle doing it verbally. It encourages us strongly to step out from our comfort zone.
2/12/24 - 30/12/24 / Week 11 - Week 14
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