Digital Imaging

Tripped Before the Finish Line

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:00:29 +0000

I thought I was finished with the visual part until I realized this morning that I didn’t save the before on my mac before telling Final Cut Express to refer to them. So, I had to go back to my room, get my usb drive, and redo the last part of the video before I could finish the sound effects to complete the entire video.

As suggested in the last critque, I removed the scene of the “Agnes Scott Candler Parking Lot” sign, so the video has a normal, calming ending, until I added credits at the very end as a finishing touch. The surprise is that the credits end with “perilous” skidding into view to a stop with a screech, so the view reaches the conclusion with a reminder of peril.

The Eye Before the Storm

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:38:06 +0000

I finished shooting the final scene this afternoon but didn’t get to fit it in until now. Next up is the sound. which has been inversed so the country landscape is narrated by the sound of the city in the beginning. This would insert a more subtle concept of a perilous situation in the case that no one is nearby to help if necessary. The sound effects will remain the same during the highway scenes, which the sound of a crash and emergency vehicle sirens, but they will fade away as the video shows a uninterrupted flow of traffic, and birds will be heard to give the viewer the sense of ease and reassurance.

Making a Statement (Not For Fashion)

Andrea Jaramillo — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:57:24 +0000

statement

statement1

The basic design concepts for the video label is to place the the viewer in the driver’s seat by following traffic signs. Sometimes the signs seem to pop up too quickly for proper reactions to take place, so the label features a green guide sign overlapped by a yellow yield sign, and the viewer has to decide which one is more important to look at and decipher first. Individually, the green sign is a notification that the current lane is perilous but doesn’t ask for any change in direction. The yield sign, however, requires the person in the lane to take action without giving any further information, reason, or cause. The text around the sign gives more information and reason as to what is going on, but the viewer in the driver’s seat has to keep looking all around the frame created by the text, which simulates the frame of a windshield, to see what is the cause of the urgent messages and necessary actions.

After the Brief Holiday

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:59:59 +0000

Today, after making and submitting the word document and illustrator for my artist statement, I continued working on my video. At this point, I have decided to make the video only a partial motion-picture. The still images will be used to compose all the scenes up until the conclusion, which will be a motion picture with a fade out at the end. This will greatly simplify the working space. Although the soundtrack is not yet incorporated with the visual component, the whole video will have a total of three pieces: the sequence of pictures, the sound, and the ending scene. Aside from the timing between the pieces, only the re-shooting of the ending scene remains to be done.

Artist Statement

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:20:50 +0000

Today we spent half the class going over a powerpoint about how to best present the “Input on TEXT on a page” assignment for our artist statement. The major points I got from the powerpoint were:

Everything must have a reason
text is connected by color, style, and distribution
Be wary of outling font
One style treatment is generally enough
Pictures should not be obvious
White space is calming
Contrast should be balanced and strong in color/value
Variations should also be strong in size, font, and styles; avoid similar value/intensity
Alignment and spacing are relevant when connection separate object

One of the major points which was relevant but unclear to me was:

Repetition

So, the basic goals for the artist statement are:

This is my idea in an illustrator pdf
This my process in a word document

I also will need to state the reasons for the selected paper, orientation, font, color, etc. for the idea.

Place Marker

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:03:39 +0000

Last Wednesday, we had another critique session about everyone’s progress. At that point, I had most of my sound track but the video was still presented using pictures instead of actual video. This made me a bit sad because I have been up and down the local highway to Conyers on the weekends but manage to forget my camera every time. Another issue is the fact that winter in finally making itself known as the most of the trees in the area have lost their colorful leaves. It would have been nice to shoot my video with the nice, vivid fall colors, but that is no longer possible.

See The Light

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:01:52 +0000

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Andrea Jaramillo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:35:25 +0000

As I am going through my pictures from Pennsylvania, I am slowly finding image which might come in handy for later scenes of my video, not just the first one. Since most of the pictures were taken while on the highway (yay for cross-country roadtrips), there are a few pictures that include 18-wheelers and much smaller vehicles

The only problem is the perspective of the pictures–I did not initially plan for the viewer to be in the seat of a vehicle but rather a spectator on the outside

What if my video didn’t just end with the car traveling on down the highway unharmed? There are a few pictures taken upon entry into a small town and a couple more of a car turning into the Candler Parking Lot by Winship. Perhaps the car continues on, after passing a guide sign, into a small town, turns a corner, and safely arrives at the destination.

This is would a more fitting conclusion, rather than the abstract open-ended car-continuing-down-the-road final scene before fade out. I will probably need to re-shoot the last two photos during dusk to make them consistent with the others. Or, I could make use of Photoshop and brighten the rest, but that would take way more time… On the other hand, the lighting actually consists with my initial idea of grayish (neither dark or light) to dark to bright. Hm, perhaps I should move on to stringing the scenes together before tweaking each individual one to fit the rest.

…

On a random note, I am now side-tracked with updating the theme of my plog. The “Welcome” title is now extended, and the picture below it updated with one of the pictures I may use in my video. Since I am failing at tagging my posts, the Tags widget has been replaced with “Recent Posts”. Also, the admin widget has been removed since I do not use it, and the “Quote of Significance” has been added for fun and flare with relation to the word my developing video project is based on.

Video Work Day

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:29:01 +0000

So the plan is for today’s class to be video-shooting time, and Wednesday is the day our peer-reviews for our books are due via email. Next Monday, Calvin will come in for more Final Cut stuffs.

Although I don’t have my external harddrive for my photos at the moment, I would like to have my video fade into the first scene of a picture I took in Pennsylvania. For the second scene of the country highway, it might be easier to shoot traffic around campus, since the landscape has lots of foliage in a small-town area. The red 18-wheeler should be fairly easy to get. If I can’t find a picture of one to use, the last resort would be to go actually shoot highway traffic and focus on the large vehicles. For the following scenes, the outdoor light should be brighter, so I will most likely have to wait until this next weekend when the sun will be out and the approaching hurricane gone. As for the final scene, my various pictures from Pennsylvania can once again come in handy because I took several pictures of interesting guide/directional signs.

Oh, I decided to clean out my two USB thumb drives before reserving one or both of them for video and pictures for this project, and I just discovered most of my pictures are on them, so I will begin going through those landscape pictures before shooting video around campus.

After talking with Nell about the sound, I think a progression from birds into a growing engine hum suddenly interrupted by a loud honk followed by the sound of a passing car. Although this sequence is shorter than 60 seconds in my mind and in reality, so it will somehow have to be extended over the entire video.

Wednesday November 4th

Andrea Jaramillo — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:27:20 +0000

Dum da da da DA! We finally had the critique for our finally-finished books. Although Ashley, Jordan, and Kimberly didn’t get to share theirs until Monday.