Following the completion of my whole ‘structure’ project, I can say with confidence that I am really pleased with the content of my efforts. I have explored a whole range of digital forms of creation from graphic design to photography to moving image and have widened my breadth of knowledge regarding all areas at the same time as showing my understanding of what a structure can be; most importantly, I have linked thus all to structure, with the running theme of my studies being to showcase structure in its most simple of form in that different colours, line, shape, textures, patterns etc. can provide the make-up for a structure. This is evident from my primary experimentation of graphics carried out on Adobe Photoshop.

Basing my project around structure was quite a fear at first because I immediately thought that it would be difficult for me to become creative with exploring the term because I instantly thought that structure would be to just photograph buildings and I saw this as boring. However, since I put some thought into where I could go with the project, I realised that photographing and researching the physical man made aspect of structure would be the most interesting for me. I had to think through what I wanted to do thoroughly because time management would be key to achieving a good quality final piece which I was aware of from taking Photography GCSE, however I feel I have managed my time wisely by planning shoots and knowing what order I wanted to complete specific tasks.

I felt like my first port of call, once aware of my aims, would be to realise what route I wanted to go down so I could maintain a sustained study throughout the project. Although I realised I wanted to focus on buildings and manmade structures, I needed to understand how exactly I was going to do this. I discovered the French artist Ill-Studio on an art publication website ‘It’s Nice That’, I love this website and it is great for discovering new talent etc. I came across their film ‘Mirrored’ and was instantly drawn to it because of its need for creativity and it would allow me to explore different forms of presentation. I knew my ability to try approach new challenges with a good mind set would be beneficial to me so this is exactly what I did.

Firstly, however, I felt the need to carry out a brief case study but thorough for the purpose. I love graphic design and creating my own designs so saw this as a great way to start off my project before going into the film. I came across a designer called Clay Hickson’s work which focused on creating graphic works using objects and many colours and patterns – which was perfect for me to show the basis of what all man-made structures are. I then researched his work and what he does then quickly got into producing my own ideas with his as a foundation. I created a few works and you can see that my confidence with using Photoshop grew as I progressed. I was overall very pleased with the outcomes and felt like it was a success.

I felt the exam deadline approaching rapidly so moved swiftly onto the idea of using reflections to create deceiving imagery. I carried out a primary photoshoot using a full length mirror after doing my research on Ill-Studio. I put a personal touch on the photoshoot, edited the images and presented them raw and as an incorporation into some more graphic work. This shoot was to show where I was at the start and then to compare to my final piece of the film – my aim was to show my progression of ability and skill.

I then began filming for the short film. I carried out two shoots and in both shoots, explored about 5-6 locations using the mirror and mu model. This was my favourite part of the project as a whole because it built up the satisfaction of moving closer to completing what I thought had the potential to be very good final piece. However, it was also very stressful because I would get annoyed easily if certain shots that I thought would look good, did not work and these would have to get scrapped. As a whole, I felt the two shoots went well and I got a decent range of shots to include in my film. I always had Ill-Studios work in the back of my mind bit as well, I wanted to put a personal touch on it, which I felt was achieved in the post-production. I also created two drafts using only a select few shots from the shoots to show what I had achieved form them and how I can build my Adobe Premiere skills up to the final piece. As well, I created a ‘how to do’ video of certain video editing software tools such as mirror and replication – which is what I would be experimenting with in the final.

In the middle of my preparation for the exam final piece, I explored the technique of half frame photography because I felt like understanding the history of certain presentation techniques would help me in my final piece – which it did because I presented certain shots as duplications of each other and this pairs more than one image together to show a similarity of difference and tell a story – which is what I leant when carrying out experimental photoshoots using the app ‘Andigraf’ to help me produce half-frame-esque works. I looked at the work of Luke Fowler and Sergei Eisenstein when doing this. I really enjoyed this quick insight into the history of presentation because it made me eager to purchase a half-frame camera.

If I was to look at my short film ‘Mirrors’ and that only, I would judge it as a very successful attempt and I am really proud because creating something like this is something I have never done before and although it was a challenge, I enjoyed it and saw it as a way to further my skills using a camera. You can look at my other posts e.g. ‘Talking About the Shots’ to know more on my thoughts of it. I haver achieved what I set out to do and that is a determiner of success.