University in a Pandemic..

For my photo essay I chose to take photos of myself at a popular fast food restaurant called five guys. I was going for a theme and I thought the colours would complement the theme which I was going for, as I wanted to glamorise fast food. I chose to photograph myself as I’m comfortable in front of the camera and my friend didn’t feel comfortable posing and she preferred to take them of me. Also because I know what I wanted to achieve and I feel like me being the model I could pose how I wanted to and I could fully achieve what I wanted. To get the effect of glamorising the food and making it seem positive I used photoshop, which came in handy in terms of editing the image and making it look lively and full of colour as that was the aim. With these images I kind of wanted to show off that I had skills in photography and knowledge in photoshop and wanted to use that as an advantage.

 One of our big projects for my module digital media is called a narrative project, which I’m looking forward to completing . This project allows us to be creative options of what we want to do in terms of being interactive and making the website, or making a stop animation or a stop motion video. I like the idea that we get to choose which you like to do because some people have different strengths and I don’t plan on doing an animation, but I could change my mind as I am confident now with the software and Audacity.

 On my digital media module, we have a reading list of books that we need to read and incorporate within our work. So for this week's reading I’m looking into a book called, Introduction into media designs with Adobe creative suite. I wanted to talk about the exercise that I read within the book which is related to the media. The first exercise I wanna go through is about just your drawings using the template layer. There are three parts and it provides a tutorial. Talks about using the paint brush to create shapes and curves on the template and how to succeed doing so. The second exercise is creating straight lines with the Pen tool. It goes into depth about using the anchor in the red line to ensure you create the perfect straight line on the template and it goes into more detail onto Hollie onto how to achieve this using the pen tool.

 For my 10 second animation, are use the software called premiere pro which is normally used for animation or stop motion videos. I think I did use this software before in secondary school but I am not very confident with it and I don’t really remember how to use it, so I had to watch tutorials and rewatch lectures. For GCSE video one of our tasks in coursework was to create a movie trailer so I did have to use this software but because that was a long time ago I forgot.

However this was slightly different because I’ve never created an animation before. To make my life easier, I used someone's example of an artist I’ve quoted in my recent blogs which was recommended by my lecturer and I wasn’t sure how using my own photos would’ve turned out. Although it was tricky at first I did figure out how to make the animation come together. Whilst editing I did have to make the animation longer because it was too short at one point so I had to try to extend the animation by adding more pictures towards the end to lengthen it. I chose to use a man holding an axe or something similar to that and him hitting the ground implying that he is digging up something.

 I’ve never used audacity before so this was quite new for me and at first I did struggle with using the software. However I did catch on quite quick after watching tutorials and attending the digital media lecture and audacity. In the lecture my lecturer explained how to use audacity and download it as it is a free software which was useful and he went through and gave it to tutorials on how to use it which I needed because I was unfamiliar with the software and it was required for making and editing the sound recording.

 In one of my lectures there was a tutorial on how to work photoshop, as I've said before on this blog I do have a background with photoshop. However I would classify myself as an intermediate, just because there’s probably some things I could improve on and also learn how to do fully on the software. In terms of editing and adjusting photos and more to do with photography and effects I’m pretty good with that but I wouldn’t say I’m the best so that tutorial was helpful, in terms of refreshing my memory. Also the lecture helped me learn new things to do on photoshop, as I am not completely confident on there but I do feel as if I could walk someone through the basics. So for me I didn’t have to worry about this aspect as I feel like the tutorial was for people who weren’t as confident with photoshop including the basics.

On Mondays I have Digital Media lectures, which I’m interested in. I have other different modules included with my course and they are reflectively different and Digital media is more practical, so I like the fact we are able to still do some practical stuff during this pandemic. Although it’s hard to maintain focus with the online lectures and can be challenging at times.

The course provides a lot of different creative projects, which is interesting and I do enjoy the practical side of media more than just writing long essays because it allows me to be creative. Including making websites, animations, blogs, which I don’t mind doing because I’m able to incorporate my own ideas and be in control of what I want to make. In most of the lectures we are shown new software to use within our projects and how  to use them, basically a live tutorial and how to achieve whatever you're aiming for. Which I find helpful if I haven’t used the software yet or if I’m not fully comfortable using it. Also able to rewatch lectures which is good and convenient.

The last part of my narrative project was creating an animation and I wasn't feeling relatively confident in doing it, as I’ve never created one and had no absolute clue on how to achieve what I wanted. So as a good student would do, I watched tutorials to help me and I fairly got the hang of it and now I feel like I could create a better one. Although it was a 10 second animation, I underestimate what would have to go into that, thinking it could be done quicker than I expected but I was wrong haha. To make the animation on premiere pro I used images from Eadweard Muybridge, he was known as an English photographer and for his motion picture projection, he often used animals in his work and human models.

So continuing on from my narrative project, the next thing I had to do was a sound recording using this software called audacity, which I’ve never heard of or used so I guess that was interesting. However I’m open to trying new things and I kind of needed to use it anyways as it was required so I watched tutorials to try and help me develop the sound recording. Although I spent a good two hours trying to figure it out, I then realised it was actually quite easy to work so I probably would’ve finished it a lot quicker if I knew from the start. The purpose of this was to promote marketing in Kingston Town and attract people, also the town centres relevant attractions and the sound should embody the location.