Digital Photography and Imaging - Final Project

 19/05/21 - 02/07/21 

Week 9 - Week 14

Tan Jiaxuan 0339598

Bachelor of Mass Communication (Public Relations and Events Management)

We are required to complete a Self-Titled project. It is all based on our own interests and passion, it allows us to reflect our personality in our artwork. This project is to help us to build our self-confidence and discover our interests.

Part 1 : Week 10 Idea Development (5 marks)

Task: 

i) Write a biography about yourself

INTRO	Tell us about yourself Jiaxuan is also known as Jasira is a 21-year-old student studying at Taylor’s University. Her major is Mass Communication (Public Relations and Events Management).‘The introvert among extroverts, but extrovert among introverts’ is the best description for her. She likes spending time staying alone as she can do anything she wishes to.
PARAGRAPH 1	What is your passion? Jasira has a huge interest in watching movies. She likes to discover the story behind the details of each movie like all the easter eggs and even the details of the props. She was amazed by all those movies' effects and the process of filmmaking. Her passion for film had brought her into studying Mass Comm.
PARAGRAPH 2	What’s motivate you to achieve your dream? She continues to explore different movies these days. She analyses the cinematography, sound effects, and editing while watching movies. She tries to combine the things she learned from movies with her studies.
SUMMARY	How do you want to visualize your dream into an artwork? She has passion in watching movies so she wants to link herself and movies together in this design.

ii) Write a statement about your work 

INTRO	Tell us about your work On this digital artwork, I want to visualize the movies that influence me a lot to the audience. It is also a track of record for me to see what movies I have watched and also inspired me a lot in my life.
PARAGRAPH 1	What is the concept behind it? I always think that movie is a very useful educational tool in our life. We can learn a lot from the character’s story. Even there are some silly and unreality elements added in, the story and the moral values are still there. I have passion in watching movies so I try to link myself and movies together in this design.
PARAGRAPH 2	What is the message you want people to understand it? I want to bring the message of “Déjà vu”. For a lot of movies, the main character always has a happy ending no matter how hard they have gone through in their life. We are just like the main character, we are the protagonist of our life and we always have the power to take control and make changes in our life.
SUMMARY	What is your motto/ quote? “Life is like a movie”

iii) Mood Board (3 Poster Reference)

Poster Reference #1

Poster Reference #2

Poster Reference #3

Part 2 : Week 11 Design Direction (5 marks)

Task:

i) Sketch your mockup poster

Sketch #1

Sketch #2

ii) Create a digital poster based on your sketch

Digital Poster #1 Progression

Digital Poster #2 Progression

First draft of Digital Poster

 

Poster #1                                    Poster #2

Feedback from Mr. Martin:

Digital Poster #1: The colour of the shirt is blending with the background. He asked me to try to change the colour of the shirt. The main subject is a bit desaturated. Mr.Martin asked me to try to apply an adjustment layer to it. Another subjective comment that I can try is to invert the colour of the film strips. 

Digital Poster #2: Mr.Martin said this design looks like a collage. So, he suggested me to go with my first design as it is more surrealist. 

Working on Mr.Martin's feedback

I decided to retake the photo as I'm not satisfied with the result of recolouring my black shirt. 

Figure 1.1 Photo of myself

Figure 1.2 Cropped my photo out using the Pen Tool

Figure 1.3 I added the photo to my poster

Figure 1.4 Then, I added B&W inverted effect in my poster to make the colour more consistent

Figure 1.5 Applied Black and White layer

Figure 1.6 Final result of editing

TITLE: Deja Vu

ARTIST STATEMENT:

“Deja vu” means a feeling of having already experienced the present situation. This is the feeling I often feel it when I’m watching a movie. The storyline will always have its own climax and hardships, but in the end, the protagonist will always overcome them. Just like us living in our daily life. There will be a moment we feel like wanting to give up on something, but in the end, we’ll just overcome it. 

For the background, I chose to have a film roll background as I want to enhance the feeling of we as humans are like living in the movie, we will always have the power to control the storyline we wanted in real life. Night View with stars and moon for the background as we often watch movies at night. Meanwhile, the clouds are to enhance the feeling of the sky. 

I added Neon Light “Now Showing” in the poster to indicate that our life is like a movie, and at the same time, I want to bring out the elements which are related to the cinema as well.

The film strips that are surrounding me are mostly the movies that inspired me a lot. I make them into a B&W inverted mode in order to bring out the feeling of old-style movie film feel.

And lastly, long sleeve shirt is to indicate the typical outfit when we went to the cinema.

Part 3 : Week 11 Animation and Finishing (10 marks)

Figure 1.7 I created the original neon light tube out

Figure 1.8 I redraw a new text layer in After Effect to make the glow effect animation

Figure 1.9 I applied Bevel Alpha effect to make the neon tube looks more 3D

Figure 1.10 Start animating my film

Figure 1.11 Working on the Handwriting effect

Video 2 First draft of my animation video

Feedback from Mr. Martin:

The overall animation is good. But can try to make it slower. And also for the cloud can make it moves horizontal so it will have more movement. I like the first concept of your design which the cloud floating in front of the character's face, I think you can remain that concept too. One more thing, you can consider inverting the colour of the film strips too.

Working on Mr.Martin's feedback

Figure 1.12 I made adjustments for the position of the clouds and applied the opacity effect on it.

Video 3 Final result of editing

TITLE: Deja Vu

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I created the transition from day mode to night mode. It is similar to the concept of how the cinema works. The movie only starts streaming after the lights are off. The night has approached, stars are sparkling and the moon is glowing. It is a great time to chill and watch a movie. Clouds floating around just like entering the world of imagination. To enhance the feeling of the movie, I created some animation on my neon light, just like how the cinema starts playing the movie and it is showing on the screen now. The old film strips with different types of movies on them are to indicate the movies that have inspired me a lot. The film's stripes are moving but not staying still as those movies have had a great influence on my perception in life a lot even until now I’m still bearing in mind that. Additionally, I also feel that the moving film strips can bring out the old retro movie film feels.

Feedback from Mr. Martin:

Well done, you even played with the sound effect! You can submit it now.

Reflection

Experience: I really enjoyed doing this project as I can select the theme I want to do. I can choose to insert all those elements I like in this project. 

Before that, I’ve always been hearing about After Effect but I have no chance to learn about it. Learning After Effect is not as easy as I thought, it took me a few days to figure out how to animate my poster. 

Observation: One of the most challenging parts for me in this project is the consistency of the colour. I have been struggling to correct all the colours of my film at the very beginning. Thanks to Mr.Martin’s feedback, he asked me to invert all the colour of my film strips. I managed to maintain the consistency of the colour for my design.

Findings: I feel that After Effect is more difficult and a bit complex to use. For example, there was a time I want to make the movement of things moving in their own way. In order to do that, I will need to insert a code to activate it. So I personally think that learning After Effect will definitely be a very long journey.