Image Seminar

The Swaminarayan Hindu Temple - Chicago [August 2006]

This animated image was created using Photoshop and Image Ready. I started off by duplicating the background layer and adding the filter effect [plastic] on it. I duplicated the layer with the effect on and increased the amount of the effect. I repeated this process a few times and then imported the project into Image Ready. Then by changing the view in each frame I created an animation, which was made smoother by tweening. (Click on the image to view the animation).

Rack Wiring Diagram

This is an image of the rack wiring diagram I created for a journal in the first year of my course. This was accompanied with an explanation of how all the parts are connected.

Year One: Identities Coursework

This is the brochure for the Identities Coursework (year one). All the photographs were taken and manipulated by myself.

Year One: Identities Coursework

The aim of the coursework in the Identities module, was to produce a corporate identity for the Digital Arts Lab (located in the Bonnington Building). My Corporate package consisted of a logo, A4 Poster, A3 Poster, Flyer and a Brochure.

This is the A4 poster, which was also the front of the flyer. Below you can see the back of the flyer.

Year One: Identities Coursework

This is an A3 size poster I created as part of my Identities Module in the first year of my course.

Self Inventory Exercise

This exercise involved reviewing my own experiences, breaking them down into groups and seeing how these experiences can influence my creative work. This exercise was helpful and interesting as it made me see how most creative work always has a personal edge to it. An idea evolves from an experience, which can be a memory, something you saw or heard that affected you in a certain way. For example in the first year of my course I made a one minute narrative about camping. This idea came from one of my first experiences of camping. I experienced this at a later stage however my film was about how exciting your first camp is even if it is just in your garden, as it was for the character in my film.

Direction: Seeing Scripts Seminar

We were given the task of reading a film script that we hadn’t seen and then writing a story outline on it. I chose to read Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru. The main themes of the story are the meaning of life and relationships. The main character Kanji Watanabe discovers he has cancer and only has a year to live. Until then he had spent up to thirty years working in the same office doing the same job. After finding out about his condition he tried to make the most of his time by going out and having fun, seeing a girl and working on a project at work that made a difference to other people’s lives.

http://www.varley.net/Pages/top_25_movies.htm, 2006

Kurosawa has a distinctive style of directing, he has made many critically acclaimed films one of them being Rashomon. In this film the story is told in four different points of views. It is very interesting how Kurosawa portrays each character and their version of the story. In a similar way in Ikiru the audience learns about Watanabe working on this project after his death through his work colleagues at his funeral. The rest of the story is told through flashbacks. In addition to this the characters in the film realise Watanabe’s great actions at the same time the audience does. Therefore it was like putting bits of the puzzle together. Each colleague remembered certain times they had with Watanabe and all the bits added up – why he had missed work, why he was so full of enthusiasm all of a sudden, how hard he had worked on the project. Once again Kurosawa used different points of views to deliver the narrative.

I would really like to see the film now; it would be interesting to see how the shots look on screen.