ST – ePortfolio Reflection

Specialist Technology Reflective Document

Hamish Sweet [1466395]

PDF of Reflection >ST Reflection

For my integrated project section of Specialist Tech I have chosen to use the Animation Workshop as my ?Scape project focuses more on the digital side of working and materiality will not be a major focus heading forward with ?Scape.

As my ?Scape project centers around photographing, collating, editing and assembling a photo book style publication, neither briefs for specialist tech fit exactly towards my main goal for the semester, however the Animation and Moving Image brief was likely the closest fitting brief of the two as it continued to look at camera and lighting techniques, as well as more indepth scene and narrative construction in terms of photography and static image despite it being about moving image, there is still a heavy focus on the individual frames and singular images.

As much as the Shape brief wasn’t the primary focus of my ?Scape project, it did assist in the choosing on the paper stocks and how certain photos were taken to emphasise the texture and overall shape of the scene.

The flexibility of material and shape showed me that there was more than one way to construct a scene or object which allowed me to look more critically at my current work and make adjustments which ultimately improved my images.

The focus on scene construction and narrative for the first few weeks of the moving image workshop were probably the most beneficial to my ?Scape project as that project was heavily focussed on photographing specific scenes that needed to appear candid and mysterious. The planning stages definitely aided in the construction of my photos and allowed me to think more deeply on how I could include and exclude certain elements in a scene to enhance the overall look and feel of the image.

As we drew closer to the end of the workshop, more emphasis was placed on the idea of editing finalising images which again related heavily towards my ?Scape project as it was important to me that my images relayed the correct message thematically. And the lessons on colour grading, final edits and scene layout influenced that heavily.

Because neither of the briefs were heavily geared towards my work for story worlds, which are largely physical documents and layouts, neither workshop particularly influenced the creation of my records for the timeScape project. However they did give me a lot to think about in regards to the content of my TimeScape project as these two briefs allowed me to explore two methods of creating work that I do not usually use (the shape brief) or have not used in a long time(the moving image brief), which in turn reminded me of why I don’t use them anymore or why I should start using them again. It was interesting to be brought back to my early days of animation and how that likely gave me my initial spark of creativity I needed to kickstart my creative career.

As far as The Enterprising Professional class goes, I didn’t find much connection between the two briefs and the EP briefs as the EP briefs were more catered towards a business practice rather than a creative sense and thus didn’t contribute heavily towards any of my other briefs.

The important thing is that the lessons learned in the animation brief, specifically those in scene creation and selection, editing and time/file management serve me greatly in the ?Scape brief.

ST – Animation Workshop

Animation, also known as professionally playing with Lego.

Week One – I’m Board of this Story already

The baseline for my story idea using these characters:

Was to have one of the two right characters laying with some sort of weapon, taking aim at the troopers on the left. This would flick back and forth between the characters as he takes each one out. My intention for this is to have many similar scenes so that scenes and frames can be reused and reproduced easily.

Week Two – Trip to RotoVegas

I did two because I thought I lost the first one- I mean because I love animating so much I simply had to do more.

Roto scoping was an interesting experiment with animation, I got the basics pretty quickly and very quickly learned it was rather soul destroying to draw over a video frame by tedious frame. That being said I enjoyed the format.

 

 

 

 

Week Three – Professional Children

Set design, lighting and shooting. Nothing I haven’t done before. Still fun. Still tedious.

Week Four – Colour me Surprised

uhhhh, I don’t think anything I did was worth posting here, it was just batch processing and some little colour corrections.

Week Five – Sounds like a wrap to me

 

 

 

ST – The Shape Of Things

Ah, the obsession with the icosahedron begins.

Week One – Intro to Paper

A basic look at shape, line and nets to create simple (or in my case, not so simple) 3D shapes from paper and card.

Paper One

Paper Three

Paper Two

Paper Four

 

Week Two – Annoying the Technicians

The logical next step from paper and card, WOOD. Basic cutting and joining techniques as well as a focus on texture and how that affects the look and feel of an object.

Wood One

 

Week 3 – Our Casting Call

Casting with plaster and other once liquid materials. A demonstration of how to turn a hollow shape into a less hollow shape.

 

Week 4 – Life in Plastic, it’s Fantastic

Creating softer shapes with plastic in regards to light and texture

Plastic One

 

Week 5 – I should not be allowed photoshop

 

In this April 21, 2012, photo the White House, seen from the South Lawn in Washington, during a preview of the White House gardens and grounds prior to the official opening of the Garden Tours to the public. Public tours of the White House are back on the schedule, though on a limited basis, starting in November 2013. The schedule will be reduced from five days a week, to an average of three days a week, starting Nov. 5 and continuing through Jan. 15. The White House scrapped the tours earlier in 2013 after mandatory budget cuts went into effect.