gdnm

ideas

20May07

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I was thinking about security, a corporate and big brother styled state and what that would look like. Visually it has been presented in movies of the past, with the setting in the future. But what struck me was going back and looking over the introductions to the reality show Big Brother. These short spots, and intros capture a form of propaganda within the object and use of CCTV which are visually appealing in the teasers. I also questioned the filming of the show to an extent: With the show drawing thousands of viewers, the majority of them mainly watch the highlights witch are broadcast later in the evening. With this in mind the editing behind the evenings show reel of highlights can be cut in a way to either make a person within the big brother house seem lazy, argumentative, racist, obnoctious, or show them in a positive attractive, kind light.

This poster taken from a bus shelter shows how in order to control the masses, and create a sense of security, governmental forces can lead on the public with campaigns such as this. I feel this poster has a very strong message uniting Londoners, creating a sense of security when we live in a time of fear, and are raging a war against terrorists. While I feel these ’safety’ posters and other forms of this public service style ads help it worries me at the same time. With a motive to install hundreds more CCTV cameras around London, amongst other places, it only limits personal space and approaches ever closer to breaching personal identity with the ability to track YOUR movements around a city (with the reason of security and lowering crime rates).

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video editing

18May07

Over the course of this project I feel that I have significantly developed in my understanding and personal skill in editing. I have researched a variety of methods of film and the different camera techniques while behind the lense, as well as many styles, effects, and techniques in post production on the ‘cutting room floor’.

The main post production video editing programs I was engaged in over the past few weeks have been iMovie, and Final Cut Pro. While in oversight achieving the same end result, the two pieces of software have their own qualities within sharing similar abilities, yet also have differences.

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Final Cut Ghost

18May07

So after what was a long night of working hard, I managed to piece together footage shot on a camcorder and import it to Final Cut Pro. With a brief demonstration on what techniques I would need to use to create the effect I had envisaged, I then went on to play around with the program. To my shock and bewilderment I managed to adjust the film to the point where the background was normal, yet I had become ghostly (in an opaque sense)! This shocked me, and it took a while for me to understand how this interesting mistake was created. I knew that I had lowered the opacity on one level of the film, but couldn’t work out why the background wasn’t affected yet my whole body WAS. The ghostly effect was then pointed out to me, and made clearer in understanding that the fixed camera footage was overlayed by my other video track in of which I did not appear in frame. Therefore the video footage of myself was had a lower alpha channel and created a see-threw layer which then was ontop of the same background making the scene look rich in color and the moving object (me) ghostly and opaque. Now I know what I can achieve with this style, in the future I might recreate this effect when a ghost, spirit, or any other see through object is needed.

this is the image with the ghostly figure.

this is the regular footage, with its true un-edited alpha channels.

this is the shot when I am out of frame.

this shows the altered alpha channels on the two video tracks, which overall gave the ghostly effect.

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Propaganda Videos

18May07

This is a great viral ad for ‘California Map & Travel Center’. Playing on the idea that men rarely ask for directions, and a humorous consequence of a possible yet extreme outcome. The way in which the commercial is not a straight forward cliche ad, but uses violence (even if it is as self defense), humor, and a gender based theory all rolled into an ad which gets the message through. I feel as if this marketing strategy as a viral ad works well and has been widely spread online proving this point.

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