Category: Unit 7

I first started by research time based media and some different examples of it. I did this to get an idea of the different forms of time based media and to get a general idea of what it is. I then started to research some artists that create time based media. I looked at different people but the ones that stood out to me were: Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, Tony Oursler and Refik Anadol. I research some of their most famous pieces and when they started to create time based media. I documented all of this in my blog. A lot of the time based media I looked at involved the use of people and their bodies. I like the way in which Bill Viola used this but I felt as if Bruce and Tony’s work sometimes became repetitive as they liked to keep the same style through a lot of their pieces. This is why I also looked at Refik Anadol, who uses projection art as the main style for his time based work. To finish my research I looked at some animated gifs created by Nike and Adidas. I wanted to create my gif using the branding I had created for unit 6. I liked the style which Nike use for their animated gif adverts because they prefer to keep the design simple and focus more on catching the eye of the target audience. I wanted to do something similar for my animated gif.

The first problem I encountered was during the light painting. I struggled with some painting some of the outlines around people and the shoe. I also struggled to paint the word LOTTO inside of the designated space. I asked my peers to help me try and get a useable light painting for my shoe. Another problem I encountered was when creating my animated gif. I wanted to create the animated gif in After Effects because it allows you to do much more compared to Photoshop. I hadn’t used After Effects much in the past and my knowledge was very limited. To assists myself I watched youtube tutorials and found out about third party programs such as Ease and Wizz. This allows you to add preset effects to your animations and this helped me a lot for this piece. My animation was quite basic so I just needed to know how to have things move, rotate and enlarge.

To plan for my animated gif I created a simple story board to give myself a starting point. I also discussed with my tutor about what we can do in the next session. For the production methods everything was done digitally. This involved updating my blog, photograph, light painting, After Effects and Photoshop. As discussed before, I had some problems when light painting and getting the desired effects. I had to raise the shoe using a small object to balance it on and different methods of moving the light.

Firstly, I used all of the branding which I had created for unit 6. I also used skills I had learned previously in Photoshop to cutout my light painting designs and also used the photography skills I had learnt previously. In Photoshop I created my first simple gif using my light painting and t-shirt. I learnt how to use the timeline tool previously at work. I then experimented with After Effects which I hadn’t used much in the past. For this I did a lot of video research to get the basics for After Effects and also some more advanced aspects to improve my animated gif. I wanted my final gif advert to be more detailed and professional compared to a gif created in Photoshop.

On my blog I have reflected on all of the aspects for this unit and what I would have done differently if given the chance. I have provided evidence for the creation of my pieces and the different methods I used to create certain pieces. I feel like I could have maybe done a few different styles for my final gif advert and maybe tried some different colours and effects. Other than this I am happy with how my pieces have come out and I feel like I have worked well based off of the knowledge I had and the thing I had to learn to complete these unit.

For my advertisement gif, I wanted to create something simple and similar to the designs from Nike which I had looked at before. I liked the idea of the simple logo and then a shoe design as I felt this allowed you to quickly show off your product and catch peoples eye. Instead of creating a simple gif in Photoshop I wanted to use After Effects because this allows you to create more complex and professional gifs. I used keyframes to create the initial points for the images on my gif and then moved the images in the direction I wanted them to go in. I also used the ease and wizz tool which is third party software that allows you to choose different effects and methods for your graphics to move.

Expo was the effect I chose for the movement of my background and text and this makes the image initially move in slowly, speed up and again slow down once it is fully in shot. I also used rotation and scale for the shoe and did this by initially setting the size of the shoe to 0% on the first keyframe and then on the second frame around 2 seconds after the size was changed to 100% and to rotate around 140 degrees.

Here is my final gif design.

Overall, I’m very happy with how this gif advert came out. I feel as if it could easily grab someones attention if it were displayed on a website and there isn’t too much information. I was keen to keep the information down to a minimum and wanted the gif to quickly showcase the product and catch the users eye.

For this task we had to create a design on a t-shirt to advertise our brand and product. The aim was to use the light paintings for this piece.

I started by finding an image of a plain black t-shirt. I didn’t have to cut anything out for this as I found a good PNG file which I could use.

I started with this plain black t-shirt and then cut-out my favourite light painting piece using the polygon lasso tool. I only needed a rough cut-out of the light painting because I planned on using an eraser around the edges to blend the light painting onto the t-shirt and make it look authentic.

Here you can see the light painting once I had cut it out and used the eraser around the edges to give the feather. For the animation aspect I thought I could change the colour of the light on the design. I could do this using the hue and saturation tool in Photoshop, which can be seen below. I created 4 different colours of the design which I wanted to fade throughout the gif.

 

I also wanted to have my logo somewhere on the design so I added the word LOTTO just under the light painting. I then gave a slight glow on the word which changed along with the colour of the light painting. To create this gif I used the timeline tool in Photoshop and the tween tool to then get the colours to fade from one to another.

Here you can see my final Gif. I am happy with this as I have created it myself using Photoshop and I like the glow on the logo. This is because I feel like it adds a bit of detail to my design and makes it more unique. One thing I would do differently is maybe use more than one of the shoe outlines I created when light painting and put them together using opacity and layer effects.

 

This was my second time doing light painting. Firstly, we started by setting up the camera and the different settings needed to do the light painting. We had to change things such as the shutter speed and ISO to allow us to capture the light painting. The shutter speed was set at around 20 seconds and the ISO was set at 100. This shutter speed allowed us 20 seconds to create our painting. We had to also take into consideration, the health and safety risks, when light painting. The floor had to be cleared and nothing should be sticking out to cause a trip hazard. The tripod also had to be in the same place and enough space between it and the area where we will be painting.

I tried many different thinks that could relate to my sport brand. I tried the outline of a person running, the outline of a shoe and some other things. I used different coloured torches and gels to add a bit of colour and difference to each light painting. One thing I struggled with was the text and getting the correct spacing for this.

These are some of my favourite light paintings and I thought that I could use the shoe outline for my t-shirt design. I could also use the 2 different ones for the same design using overlay effects and can change the colour in Photoshop. If I were to do this task again I would definitely try and get the text finalised. I could do this by doing 1 letter at a time and compiling them in Photoshop.

Firstly, I looked at some simple gifs created by some major sports brands. I feel like Nike do a great job of using gifs and using them to advertise their products. They like to use a lot of bright colours to match the different colour ways of their shoes. These colours help to draw attention to the gifs and get people to look at the shoe. They like to keep it simple with the use of frames and changing quickly between each frame to show off all the styles of shoes they offer. I feel as if this works because it isn’t too long or intricate which could cause the target audience to lose interest and it is also eye catching and a good, easy way to show off your products. Other brands also use this method because it allows them to quickly display their products and the different options.

Time Based Art

Time based media is usually created and focused around technology and can be displayed in a video, film, slideshow, audio or anything else computer based. Artists create galleries which display their videos and the aim is to watch the art unfold over time. I like this form of art and animation because it gives the artist a different opportunity to display their work, compared to, a painting or photograph for example. Time based media is usually very unique and interesting to look at even though it is usually a still background and one act unfolding over a short period of time.

Bill Viola

I looked at some famous artists that have created time based art. The first person I looked at was Bill Viola. A lot of Bill’s work is focused around water due to the fact that he nearly drowned as a child. I am a fan of Bill’s work because he has varied from a comedy aspect to a serious aspect and has used people as a large form of his art. This gives a unique and life like feel to his art. One of my favourite pieces from Bill is called The Deluge which can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3VoMuwBPAE.

So much of Bill’s work involves water and it can sometimes get repetitive but he has used water in so many different ways that it is always different in some aspect. Bill also has a great way of explaining his work and the reasonings behind it. Another great piece from Bill is called Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water). This displays people or martyrs being effected by the 4 elements, which can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ZcIoGeRIQ.

Bill’s work, to me, feels like a moving painting or photograph because of the style in which he creates his work. This is with a still background and the use of people and other things moving to create the time based art.

Bruce Nauman

Another time based artist I looked at was Bruce Nauman, who was one of the first people to create time based media and make it a popular art form. He created time based art in the 1960s and one of his first pieces was called Performance Corridor which he released in 1968. A lot of Bruce’s initial time based art was created using his own body. This can be seen in pieces such as Wall-Floor Positions. In this piece he simply moves his body into different positions against a small area consisting of a wall and floor and he does this for around an hour.

Bruce has some time based pieces which are based on the person viewing them. He firstly, created some pieces in which he videos himself moving through these small corridors in different ways. He then installed these pieces in galleries and allowed people to view and move through them. I like this because it is different from most time based pieces and can be affected by things such as light moving through the corridors and colours lights being projected throughout the corridors. The fact that you can experience these pieces for yourself is also what makes them unique.

Tony Oursler

Tony Oursler’s work is more focused around people, their faces and distorting them to create his art. He uses projections and different shapes to distort his art. A lot of his work is similar in this way but is still unique from other forms of time based media. He has created music videos with David Bowie. which followed his projection style.

Here you can see the style of Tony’s work. This is consistent throughout his work and he has the faces and peoples features moving. I do enjoy this style because it is eye catching and can also be humorous to look at.

Refik Anadol

Refik Anadol uses a digital style when creating his work and uses projections in rooms to bring a room to live. He also uses a distortion style and has still images moving and distorting to change into other images. I like this style of projection onto walls and floors as I have seen and enjoyed this style when watching NBA games. Before a game starts they project an animation onto the court which looks very striking and real. Refik has a similar style with his work but it is focused more around shapes and these shapes moving.

I feel as if this style of time based media is important because it is the way in which advertising and technology is moving. It is becoming more and more common and people like Refik help to pioneer and move this style in the right direction.