Monday, November 30, 2009

Type 3 | Portfolio










This all still needs a lot of work. I want to reorganize the pictures, and fix up the labels. Also the cover page I want to make more interesting.

Type 3 | Leave-Behind Item





I was thinking a 4X3 booklet, sort of a play on the coupon books that you get in the mail.

Type 3 | Resume | How about this for Process?








Poop to not poop.

Vislang | Progress | Day 6 | Movie Rough Draft

It's coming together finally!

However, I wasn't able to upload the video to anything, because my file was 800 MB, and I didn't want to reduce the quality, because the it would look like poop. However, for the purpose of documentation, I took some screen shots of the action.





Monday, November 23, 2009

Vislang | Progress | Day 5.1 | Inspiration





Here is the look I'm going for.

Vislang | Group Discussion

1. We are all working in a time-based media that doesn’t allow the viewer any interaction. We all have a subtle use of humor and indirect references to our postcards. A sense of 1950s wholesomeness seems to be a common theme in all our work. We all have an established color palette, with limited color choices.

2. Rick – make more visually engaging by changing color palette and type. change noise to solid fill. look into gradients/ halftones.

Johnna – get more consistency. break out of boxes. more hand drawn elements. find inspiration.

Tammy – make annotations more clear by slowing down the typpppooooograppphyyy. finish story.

Dmitri – put things together. more work. sean needs to shave.

Vislang | Progress | Day 5 | Footage

Raw, unedited footage. Crappy quality due to big size of file.

Footage from Dmitri Kozlov on Vimeo.



Also, Sean being creepy.

Sean is Creepy from Dmitri Kozlov on Vimeo.

Vislang | Progress | Day 5 | Script

Narrator:
Hello. Today we’re going to learn about the communication model. The communication model has many parts, and can become confusing. But if you break it down to the most basic parts, it becomes quite elementary. Let’s meet Bobby.
Bobby is the source. What is a source exactly?
A source can be almost anyone. The source is where the message originates, the beginning of the conversation. The source contains many layers.
Say Bobby here wants to write a letter to his friend Joe. He needs to sit down and write his message. But what kinds of elements are going to influence Bobby?
For one, his socio-cultural level. Bobby lives in a middle-class family. He goes to high school and has many friends. Bobby is an average American boy. Bobby wouldn’t know anything about living in Africa.
Another factor is his communication skills. Can Bobby communicate his point across clearly? What about Bobby’s knowledge level? Is he well educated?
Finally, Bobby’s attitude towards the subject affects his message. If Bobby is angry or pleased by the subject, it may change the way he crafts his message.
When Bobby is writing his message, he has to keep a several things in mind. First, Bobby must remember to properly encode his message. If he writes his letter in Spanish, his friend Joe won’t understand it.
Secondly, he must think of the content. It must make sense for his friend Joe to understand the intention.
Lastly, Bobby must understand the way he combines the code and content will be the treatment of the message, and this is the most important part. If Bobby writes him message very small, it won’t matter if his language is English and his content is clear, Joe still won’t be able to read it.
Once the message is complete, the source will send it through the channel, which in this case is the United States Postal Service. The mailman will then deliver Bobby’s message to Joe’s house.
However, there may be noise!
Noise can come in many forms. The letter can get lost. The mailman may deliver it to a wrong address. The letter may get dropped in water, or be ruined in some other way. Ultimately noise will distort or disrupt the message.
Nevertheless, if the message comes through without disruption, Joe still has the same levels as Bobby when he is decoding the message. Socio-cultural level, communication skills, knowledge and attitude are just as important in receiver as they are in the source. These factors may cast a different light on the message.
After the message has successfully, or even unsuccessfully reached the receiver, Joe can provide feedback to Bobby. The feedback may run into the same noise as the original message.
When the feedback comes back to Bobby, the whole process starts over again.
And so, we observe the communication model.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Vislang | Progress | Day 4



It's not done yet, but it's almost. I just have to wrap the outsides.

I also have a variety of stock footage, but it's on a tape, and I don't want to rewind and download it yet, because that would screw up my tape. I will have all of them by Monday, then the editing process will begin.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

NA | Project Proposal 2

Here are the ideas that I have:

1.Sous chef that has to step up when the head chef suddenly dies. This would be a collage of stop motion with a voice over, and text.

2.Restaurant owner with a kooky staff. This would be a live action intro, with music and text.

3.Cooking staff at the white house. Still images with text and music.

4.Behind the scenes of a cooking show. This wouldn't be a reality but a comedy show. Live action with music and text.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Process!


The New York Public Library has recently updated their logo. While being an awesome solution, Under Consideration has posted a page of the process used to make the logo. Looks like all that stuff we're learning about iterations isn't going to waste!

Check out the process here.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Vislang | Progress | Day 3 | Progress




Vislang | Progress | Day 3 | Communication Model



Change of typeface and repositioning of some elements. The diagonal lines are the noise.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Vislang | Progress | Day 2.2 | 3D Models



Vislang | Progress | Day 2.2 | Communication Model

Awareness



This is a new eco-friendly design by Harc Lee for a coke can.

"A convex logo substitutes colorfully sprayed can. Naked can help to reduce air and water pollution occurred in its coloring process. It also reduces energy and effort to separate toxic color paint from aluminum in recycling process. Huge amount of energy and paint required to manufacture colored cans will be saved. Instead of toxic paint, manufacturers process aluminum with a pressing machine that indicates brand identity on surface."


Very cool eco design.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

NA | Project Proposal

I want to do an introduction to a show. Particularly a cooking show. The kind of cooking show I want to do is a sitcom based around a head chef in a kitchen and his sous chefs and servers as the rest of the cast.

Why a cooking show? Welp, I'm glad you asked. First of all, because I haven't done anything like this, and because I'm interested in taking a new perspective on food. There are plenty of cooking shows(as you will see in my research), but I feel like I've got something new to bring to the table. The purpose of this will be to introduce the show, but turn it on it's head because right now all shows seem to be a reality and I want this to be more of a comedy. It would be on a network like NBC(after all, they do have the best comedies on TV, amiright?), around 7-8 in the evening, presumably surrounded by other comedies. The audience would then be middle age Americans (ages 20-40) that have probably recently come home from work.

Here's some different takes on cooking shows.

Here is Top Chef (which I secretly love), a reality TV cooking competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPsvT2AbR4c
(it wouldn't let me embed and this is the only good one I found)

Alrighty, this one is for Iron Chef. Cheesy goodness.



Okay, this one isn't a cooking show, but it's really amazing. This is the intro for Dexter, which is a show about a serial killer, who works in forensics as a blood analyst for Miami Police Department and he kills other serial killers who are bad. So he's kind of like a superhero, but also a serial killer. Keep that in mind as you watch this intro.

Vislang | Progress | Day 2 | Visual Research

Duck and Cover



And I know Jamie already posted this.




I watched a lot of 1950s educational films and PSAs. First of all, they're hilarious. Second, they seem to have to several things in common. Here's what I noticed:

-the actors are god awful
-the narration is stinted simple
-it's the same voice every time
-there are certain actions that the actors do (e.g. leg up on the chair)
-family and wholeness is emphasized
-adults regarded as a authority over children
-black and white(duh)
-crappy production(might have to mess up my movie digitally)
-very plain dress
+plain sweaters, plaid shirt
+khaki or black pants
+long skirts
-hair slicked back/head band
-very proper

There are other things, but they're smaller details. I hope these things will help me create a more 50s atmosphere in my movie.

Vislang | Progress | Day 2 | Communication Model



The model is starting to become more clear, the next step will be adding a second layer of meaning.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

NA | StatementForNonLinearProject

See what I did there? I made the title like I would in flash.

Bam!

End of statement.


Just kidding.



Addition of sounds such as music, voice over and sound effects adds a deeper element to the narrative. While the picture can say one thing, the music may define it on a deeper level. For example, while my movie may be about cooking eggs, if you play the song "Take Time" while watching it, it will speak to a bigger idea of taking some time to cook and egg, a break from all the bustle. The same way, voice can bring a different experience than music. While music immerses a person in the experience, a voice-over may give the audience a more objective or factual view. Sound effects can bring a more realistic feel to the movie. They add a dimension of reality that doesn't exist in a silent movie.

As far as the control I exerted over the user in this project, I think it is minimal. The user can watch the movie with all sounds, no sounds, all music, etc. I didn't cut the movie in any way with any particular sound to form an effect. The whole movie is presented. On the other hand, I did choose the particular songs and noises, and wrote the scripts for the voice-overs myself, so there is a certain amount of control exerted there.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Vislang | Progress | Day 1.1

Started writing copy.

This is Bobby. Hi Bobby. Bobby is a source. What is a source? It is the place where all the messages come from, the birth place of ideas. The source is composed of several layers, like an onion or a cake. Each layer represents a different characteristic of the source. The source produces a message. Bobby wants to tell his friend Sancho about a microphone. This microphone, he says, is awesome. He then sends the message off. The message finds its way through the channel. Here, the message can be interrupted by noise. Noise can change or even stop the message! Watch out Sancho! However, even if the message comes through clean, it can still be read differently by the receiver. Sancho, however receives the message correctly. His characteristics are similar to those of Bobby. Sancho then sends feedback to the source. He says, I agree with what you're saying. This microphone is, indeed, awesome. This feedback could run into the same problem as the original message. Noise could change the feedback as well. When the feedback reaches the source, the process starts all over again.

Vislang | Progress | Day 1








The notes are within the notebook. The three frame timelines were used to explore methods of animating both my model and the visual example.

Type 3 | Finalizing Book

two book cover proposals



the rest of the book