Before I began my project I decided to gather inspiration by visiting galleries in Leeds and Manchester to look at layouts, themes and work that may relate to collections, but found that I didn’t find any work that inspired me for this specific project. Although, I did gather ideas on layout methods and good visual use, I found it difficult to find anything specific to what I wanted to do, so I used the internet to find more inspiration, which I found was more effective and specific.
I stumbled upon some stop motion pieces which kick started my project idea. Because I’d always been a fan of stop motion work, I thought of how I could use this in my book, so I decided to create a selection of flip books which would display movement, but I still needed to think of a subject matter. When considering time management, I thought of how I could create the images I needed over Christmas, with a lack of technology and help available, so I began thinking of how living in the countryside would help benefit my subject. This led me onto thinking of natural movement, which was the point I decided to use in my flipbooks.
Before the holidays began, I used this opportunity to experiment with binding flipbooks, creating my own stop motions and learning what equipment would work best. Because I had a lack of knowledge with using video cameras and felt that there was too little time to teach myself, I decided to use a camera with a fast shooting mode to create stop motions from images rather than film. Not only did I do this for time management purposes; I also felt that because photography was my main area of work, this would be a good way to develop my skills further in a challenging process.
I experimented with making a number of different flipbooks with different binding methods, but mainly concentrated on using sewing methods because this was the most effective method to use, but also because of lack of materials such as screws and bolts. Over the holidays I travelled to different areas to experiment with creating stop motions, ranging from using continuous shooting, to creating time lapse over the space of 2 hours, using a tripod for all.
Over the holidays I also began thinking of what to do for my postcard design and other piece. Because of time issues, I decided to incorporate my time lapse photos into both pieces by designing a time lapse film and creating an image that showed time lapse too. I chose to concentrate on these more when I was back in Leeds, so I spent the holidays creating stop motions using my camera, gathering inspiration online and looking at flip book tutorials to help me create effective books. When I arrived back in Leeds, I began editing and printing my images to turn into flip books, then used book binding drop in sessions to begin creating them. Besides a few minor problems such as binding and size differences, the books turned out well, and had a good colour range especially.
After a personal tutorial where I discussed problems of the books not showing movement, I decided to experiment with depth of field and focus to create more movement in my books, but I found that this still wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped, but also with money and time issues it would of not have been possible for me to re-create a lot of my books. After I had completed my books, I began to design my film, which I originally did in Imovie, but because the program had limitations, I had to recreate it in final cut, which was a big problem for my timing. I managed to complete the film before the exhibition successfully, but because of lack of time and experience, the film itself was badly cut, which is one of the main disappointments with my project because the film itself had a lot of potential. For the postcard I used to Photoshop to combine 5 time-lapse images, which showed night to day, and used colour balance along with brightness levels to edit the colours to show more of a contrast. I found the postcard was successful but with more time could have been done more professionally.
I was pleased that I managed to complete everything before the exhibition, especially with it being moved a week forward, but because of this I also felt that my work could have been a lot more professional and better quality. The exhibition itself I felt was successful, but especially seeing all of vis coms work brought together; I felt this gave everyone an opportunity to see each others styles and work together as a team, especially as an ending to a independent project.
Since I’ve always found myself to be someone who enjoys working alone, I managed this project quite well, but feel that I didn’t spend enough time getting feedback off friends and classmates, which would have been useful for advice, because a large issue with my work was concentrating on a certain audience. Because my theme was considered more ‘arty’ rather than useful, it was difficult for me to state a target audience, especially because in my honest opinion the project itself was more for my sake to develop my own skills and show what I enjoy.
