Professional project evaluation
This professional project has been an interesting experience. From its low to highs there has been a massive combination of different situations. First of all i started off with the mindset that i wanted to go into a post production house and start creating visual effects for film. But this project seems to of turned me in a completely different direction yet still working on a visual level. I teamed up with Phil Andrews because i knew that we both work well together and bring different perspectives into a singular project. Phil loves to work on a conceptual foundation in terms of ideas whilst i work more on a visual level.
Phil Beards came to us about an opportunity from the Ministry of Sound. They asked us to research in their little side group called ‘Hed Kandi’ and to await for them to get back to us. Unfortunately they took weeks to actually get back in contact with us and we had already picked up another project. I learnt that you could not wait on someone for too long. The more you wait, the longer you sit without money. You need to take the initiative and grab the next opportunity that walks by. Phil Beards then approached us about the Fashion show that’s being held at the 02 academy.
We had a meeting with Sarah Charles who is in charge of the show and also students on the course. We put across the idea of possibly creating a touch screen catwalk after we studied some videos involving interactive visual effects. Like videos showing moving wispy lines following glasses being put down on tables. We wanted to bring an experience to the fashion show, an almost magical touch. I started developing a VVVV patch which tracks movement and pressure sensitivity. This would of been the software that would of been used when the models walked across the catwalk. Until we came across a massive problem. Material costs. This was something we had to massively compromise on, we started to realise that the materials we where asking for was extremely expensive and also weight distribution would be a massive problem. But at this point we got offered another project. One that i would consider to be our development for creating and projecting surreal imagery.
The costume show Dracula which was shown at the lighthouse theatre in Poole offered us a place to create their visuals. We decided to put the fashion show on hiatus and use Dracula to develop our work and build up towards the fashion show. We created and composited visuals based on watching the rehearsals for a whole week non-stop. The main software used to create the visuals were After Effects and Modul8. We worked for a full week at the lighthouse theater running tech runs and dress rehearsals. We used a nine thousand lumens projector at the start but we came across a problem. The fan on it was too loud and the dialogue in the theatre couldnt be heartd so we had to order a four thousand lumens projector instead. We also came across the problem of the red channel not projecting properly from the projector. All of the red visuals came out a strange orange colour. So i came up with the idea of making those certain visuals white and then using a red filter to place over the projector at queued points. Phil then developed a nice little filter system which could both blackout and apply a red filter. So Phil was on the filter and i was queuing him through the headset as i was visual mixing. The show was a massive success and we recieved a great reaction from the audience and the production team. We even had a review from the Daily Echo saying we had created “Stunning visuals.”
After the show we got straight back onto the fashion show but completely rethought our approach. Phil decided to come back with his idea from the Performance video project which was to project onto water. Now in our meeting with Sarah Charles she loved the idea but she and Phil Beards found that it was a scary idea. But we were determined to make it happen, Phil Andrews started developing the design for creating a pumping system. We went through loads of different prototypes and then came to the conclusion that we would need to build it gradually scaling up to proove it could be done. So we created our first prototype pumping system outside the enterprise pavillion and it worked. We showed Phil Beards and the fashion department but they still weren’t convinced, as they hadnt seen any images actually projected onto the water. We were still measuring such factors as how much power the pump works at and also where leaks sprung out and weight distribution as well as costing up the materials. So we decided to do a large scale version in my garden and project onto it and it was a massive success. All of the visuals were crystal clear and it did what we wanted it to do. It entertained people, all the people we showed fell in love with it and started interacting with it.We also tested a fully working reservoir system which we built using wood and water proof membrane to test out its capabilities.
Between all of this i started developing visuals for the show which were based upon requests from the fashion students. I wanted to increase my conceptual thought so i decided to go back to old college techniques and start creating brain storms to come up with ideas to create visuals rather than just simply “make” them.
In conclusion i think this was an extremely successful project, we made 4 prototypes even after completely scrapping the initial idea for the show which applies to our brief. We also created visual content to go with it and extensively tested our product. Phil and i work very well as a team and i think from this project i would like to create visual content in an alternative way. We have spoken about what we would like to get out of this and we would possibly like to set up some form of business creating concepts like this. It has actually given me a sense of direction in what i would really like to do when i have left university.
