Video Diptych: Old Vs. New

This project was completely different than any project I’ve ever done in the past. I’ve never used video as a “medium” which also meant I’ve never used any of the video programs. I made my project in Final Cut Pro X. It was very difficult at first trying to figure out all the different tools and using them to do what I wanted. After finally learning the program I was able to put my video footage together. I enjoyed using a different program and doing something different. The assignment was to make a video diptych of opposing forces. I decided on old versus the new way of doing things. For example clips in my video include, a mailbox vs. emailing, walking vs. driving, using stairs vs. an escalator, handwriting vs. typing, and board games vs. video games. A part I had difficulty with was splitting the screen so that both sides played at the same time. For me that was tricky to figure out. Overall I found this project challenging but I liked doing something different.

Experimental Capture Poster

This project consisted of creating a poster about a social issue in Adobe Photoshop. The challenge was that anything we were manipulating in photo shop had to be scanned into the computer. In addition our poster couldn’t have any words on it to portray our idea. At first this project seemed difficult but once I had my idea it became very simple for me. I decided not to use the same social issue, traffic, as I did for the Book of Change poster. Instead, I focused on the harm of drugs. I scanned a bunch of things into the computer but in the end I made my entire project out of three scanned pills. I created a man out of pills showing that he is literally made of them. In reality that is the effect that harmful drugs have on people, it becomes them.  The first thing I did was create the outline of the man’s face with the pen tool. Next I created a pattern by duplicating the three scanned pills multiple times.  After filling the man with the pill pattern, to create that dimension I made smaller shapes filled with the same pattern. I used different brightness levels and contrasts to create the dimension of his face. I portrayed the harm in drugs with a negative connotation by leaving the pills red and expressing the background in a blurred and turmoil way.

Abstraction and Angles: Diptychs

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I’ve had my SLR camera for about a year now, but I never really knew how to use it. I learned how to change the shutter speed and ISO, which are both new concepts for me. I also learned how to use manual focus rather than auto. I also took photos at different times of the day. I discovered that I enjoy taking pictures in the evening when the sun is setting. I found that time of day to be most interesting to shoot. This project was about creating three diptychs. This meant putting two photos side by side in order to portray a new idea. We had to shoot all of our photos in one location and I chose the fountain by Smith. A majority of my photos I concentrated on different focuses of my subjects. In the future I’d like to pay more attention to the depth of field because a lot of my photos are relatively close up images.

Book of Change Poster

The project involved making a poster about a social issue using the program Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is a program I’ve had some experience with in the past.  I already knew how to use the pen tool, which was key for this project.  The more difficult part of this project for me was portraying my idea in a simplistic way and making it original. I chose traffic as my issue and I made my poster about carpooling to influence fewer cars on the road. An issue I struggled with was having so many layers! I constructed the van using the pen tool and I made so many different shapes on different layers, which made it confusing to work with at times. I plan on labeling my layers next time, especially if I know I’m going to have a lot to work with.