From your Personal Investigation based on IDENTITY & COMMUNITY write an overview of what you learned so far (both as Yr 12 and Yr 13 student) and how you intend to develop your Personal Study.

5. Plan your first photo-shoot as a response to initial ideas. Must be published on the blog by Wed 2 Dec.

Themes and Techniques I have studied:

Life after lockdown/isolation, the natural world, repetition, pattern, rhythm, reflection and symmetry, Astrophotography, Street Photography, Candid Portraits, Studio shoots, photo montage, Landscapes, Macro, Romanticism, new topographics, Anthropocene, Identity, Community, Family archives.

I have mostly used digital photography to explore these themes and techniques, but recently have used video in the NFT project, as well as stitching a tapestry.

some artists I have researched and referenced are: Alfred Krupp, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Henri Cartier, Claude Cahun, Ansel Adams, Lewis Baltz, Jeremy Carroll, Lilli Waters, Mike Winkelmann

The software i enjoyed using the most, as well as where i feel i improved the most at using Adobe Lightroom, where i edit images to portray a certain feeling to the viewer. My favourite ay to edit images is with high contrast between colours and tones to create a more impactful image that draws the viewers eye. Aswel as this i have used Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro

Identity Mind Map

My thought behind this id map is having multiple parts of your identity, mainly having a time to spend alone and your own identity, then the time you spend with other people and your social identity. I think the contrast between these images are interesting as they can portray two sides of the same person, as some images may appear to be introverted and lonely, but other images can make the person seem extroverted and sociable. Showing that a persons identity doesn’t have to be fixed and can change depending on the situation. These sets of images also shows the different emotions this person can be feeling as well as making the viewer feeling a certain way too. I also like the contrast between the posed and thought provoking images of the one person alone, and the candid and in-the-moment style of the social images, the almost un-professional style of photo makes the viewer relate to the image as if they were really there.

Statement of intent

What you want to explore?

I would like to explore the topic of identity, broadly as a whole, as well as how people can have multiple identities. The direction i would like to go with this is mainly Alone vs Social identity. I find this comparison interesting because of the contrast that can be created between the two through the actual contents of the image as well as how the image can be edited. Ideas like group photos with faces covered could show that they have a social identity as a group, but each individual has a separate identity and life of their own outside of that environment.

Why it matters to you?

I feel like this matters to me because it applies to me and my friends. We all have our own identities individually. But when we are together we have a group identity and show the social side of our identity, as well as our own personality and identity showing through too. I find that everyone has this contrast between their identity when they are by themselves and when they are with others, their personalities come together and show through the image, especially with friend groups, less with strangers. I think when people see the images created they will be able to relate to them, creating a deeper meaning and making the image more personal.

How you wish to develop your project?

I plan to have two contrasting styles of photography within my project, one being a crisp, aesthetic portraiture of a single subject. This will portray one side of a persons identity when they are alone. These images will be more though provoking, meaningful and perhaps metaphorical in their finished state. The other contrasting style will be a more casual, candid, almost less-professional style of portraiture, street and event photography. These will include multiple subjects and mostly be ‘old-school’ and ‘vintage’ looking, as if they were taken on a film camera. As well as these two contrasting styles, I may include images blending the two, with one subject alone, but in a social environment, showing that even though the person is in a social situation, they still have their individual identity. I will then edit these images to further bring out the meaning and emotion behind them.

One photographer that takes photos in the film-photography style i am going for is Caleb Triscari:

Another artist that takes photos in the style i am going for with individual identity is Noah Silliman:

First Shoot Plan

My first shoot will be a portrait or a shot from behind the subject of them alone. The location for this shoot will be a wide open area to show that the subject is alone with their thoughts and identity, showing that the photograph reflects them and only them. This will be the far end of St Ouens bay up on the hill. I will edit these images to be high in contrast between the lights and the darks to create a more moody photograph. I will also use warm tones to make the image more inviting for the viewer, to give an autumn type of feel to the image.

Me and Michael get given the topic ‘Education and Sport’ to make a poster on related to Jersey.

We used the island identity report to list facts and information about these topics, as well as images to visually show the islands education resources and sporting life.

We also answered these questions on the poster:

1. What makes Jersey special and why does it matter to you?
2. What does it mean to be ‘Jersey’, now and in the future?
3. What can we all do to solidify a cohesive and positive Island identity?
4. Are there barriers to a positive and inclusive Island identity? (What requires a greater focus and what is being missed?)

Below is the final product:

We have two final outcomes for our Final outcomes, a 20 second video/animation, as well as as an image which is a montage of the different animated scenes included in out video.

While editing the video, we decided to make some changes that were not in the original storyboard. These were mainly additional edits, cuts, video effects and sound effects to create a more lively and fact paced overall video.

Below are the final products for the NFT project:

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/7f2e5973-fc97-435e-8d97-632fd5209787

Summery

I think that our final outcomes for this project were successful as they carry out what we planned in our aims at the start of the project. The overall message of the video is to show the difference between online and offline worlds and how they can come together to become part of peoples social life. The metaverse is shown through the animated sections of the video along with the virtual reality headset worn by the characters. We displayed the metaverse similarly to real life, but with more freedom and ability to do what you want. This is also shown in the still image where the animated side is split into 5 different scenes showing the possibilities of the metaverse in the future.

The Occupation Tapestry was the biggest community art project ever made in Jersey, and made by Islanders for Islanders.

Some parts of the tapestry are about a specific parish:

It was conceived in order to tell the story of what life was like during the five years of German occupation. The original idea of the tapestry came about when, in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the Liberation, suitable projects were sought which would have a enduring life after the anniversary –

The tapestry was a collaborative project between Doug Ford, working for the jersey museum, and Wayne Audrain, a local artist. The tapestry started off with two panels and had expanded to the full 12 panels that is is at today, each showing a sense of what life was like in jersey during the German occupation. Every panel was designed by Wayne who gave a guide on the colours used within the panels to keep consistency throughout the whole tapestry when seen together.

The Occupation Tapestry was first shown by Prince Charles on the 9th May 1995. After being displayed in the Jersey Museum for a year it was moved to a purpose built gallery in an old quayside warehouse on the New North Quay.

Today the Occupation Tapestry is still in that gallery. The thirteenth panel was created and added to the tapestry on the seventeenth anniversary of Liberation in 1995. This commemorates how islanders continue to remember acts of heroism and the victims of Nazism.

Our recording location was an open field on the coast. We chose this location because of the space to get wide shots and use the drone to record specific scenes. We recorded most of the real-life shots at this location other than the first scene of the second person where we shot it inside a house.

After completing the animated scenes we put them all into Adobe Premiere Pro and cut, cropped and ordered them to fit our plan and storyboard. We used sound effects, video effects, transitions and speed remapping on videos to create a successful final video.

Here are some screenshots of videos from our shoots:

For our animation video, the concept is that half of the video will be videos that we record in the real world, and the other half will be fully animated in Blender.

Our plan is to have 12 separate shots to span around 30 seconds in total when edited. The first shot will be ‘person 1’ putting on a virtual reality headset while outside. The camera will then zoom out upward with the use of a drone. The video will then cut to a split-screen with one half being a real-life video and the other half being animations on blender. There will be 5 of these animations cycling through to show what the potential metaverse could look like in the future. It will then cut to an animated zoom into a house, where ‘person 2’ is seen with another VR headset on holding a controller. The person takes off the headset as the video cuts to both subjects meet in real lofe back outside. The final scene is a zoom in shot of them sitting on a bench together.

The idea of this animation video is to show how the metaverse could help people come together and could be a part of peoples social life.

Here is the storyboard for the animation video:

Definition

NFT – A non-fungible token is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files.

What is an NFT

The idea of NFTs emerged from what is called a “colored coin”, initially issued on the Bitcoin blockchain in 2012-2013. Colored coins are tokens that represent real-world assets on the blockchain and can be used to prove ownership of any asset, from precious metals to cars to real estate, even equities, and bonds. Although not as sophisticated, this original idea was to use the Bitcoin blockchain for assets like digital collectibles, coupons, property, company shares, and more.  They were described as new technology and gave raw possibilities for the future prospects of utilization. – https://blog.portion.io/the-history-of-nfts-how-they-got-started/

NFT Artist – Mike Winkelmann (Beeple)

Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, is currently the most successful NFT artist with his total artwork value adding up to $113,100,017.88. His most valuable artwork sold for $69,346,250.00, the artwork was called “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” and was largely responsible for the mainstream media’s coverage on NFT sales. This was also the first time an auction house sold an NFT and accepted cryptocurrency as payment.

Beeple has sold a total of 845 pieces with an average sell price of $133,849.86 each. He also continues his ‘Everyday’ series on his Instagram by posting daily digital creations. mHe creates extremely realistic digital images and animations from digital shapes and scenery to political illustrations.

For this project we are in groups to produce a 30 second animated film and a digital image both linked to the idea of community and what out community will be like in the future.

Idea Board

Out of these different links to community we have chosen to focus on the comparison between online and offline communities. We chose this because of the link of this topic to NFT’s, showing that the world will become more digital as time moves on, leaving an opportunity to express this through our animation and digital image.

Image Idea Board

Statement of Intent

With the word we have been given as ‘Community’ we split this into different meanings such as; Local community, school community, online/offline community, friendships, sport communities etc. We have also been thinking and learning about NFT’s and the development of the digital world. With this we decided to focus our digital image and animation on the difference between our online and offline community, and what the online community and metaverse will look like in the future compared to the physical world.

CONCEPT: What will the future of Jersey look like as a community in the metaverse?

3 Words

Futuristic, Advanced, Modern

A Sentence

A fully digitalised, advanced cyber space that is extremely different from the physical world.

A Paragraph

A fully digitalised, advanced cyber space that is extremely different from the physical world. I imagine this world to be accessible through virtual reality goggles and it will be as big, if not bigger than the physical world. Enabling users to travel and access anything they want, making things possible that would not be achievable in the physical world. The difference between this metaverse and the real world will be huge, which is why we are focusing on it for our NFT project.

CONTENT: How will you make your film?

Our 30 second video will contrast the two points of view of the metaverse and the physical world. We will use split screen and aerial transitions to display the switching between points of view. For the real world aspect we will mostly use raw camera images and footage, with colour corrections and simple editing. For the metaverse POV we will mainly use fully digital animation to create the different futuristic effects and backgrounds for the different shots.

Stitching

The two main stitch types which I used was a Back stitch and a Running stitch:

I used various materials and cut pieces of material from a tapestry to create a story and image of my own. I started with a cut out of a persons head from the tapestry:

My next step was to cut out a section of cross-hatched material and stitch it onto the subjects eye. The idea behind this was to create a greater sense of mystery about the person’s identity:

After this, my next step was to stitch over his mouth and the other eye to again bring a sense of mystery to the buys identity and also add more texture to the overall piece:

The final addition that I made was to backstitch the whole thing onto another part of the tapestry that I cut out. This was to add more context to the overall piece by putting the subject in a location that the viewer can interpret for themselves:

Animation

After completing the final embroidery piece, I transferred all these images and layered them in photoshop. I put the images in chronological order and set the frame rate for the animation. Here is the final product:

Tapestry

After we finished our individual pieces, we put them together to create a deeper meaning and story to be interpreted by the viewer. We stitched the individual pieces to a large material sheet in an order that we agreed on, here is the final product:

In this workshop we were shown how to animate a simple 2D image in Adobe After Effects. We were given a pre-set image with components to move around. We set keyframes for the different components to move them in co ordination with each other.

Here are the keyframes i used t create the animation:

Below is my final animation from this workshop: