diary /

Showing my work

22/07/2005

Images of the English Nature office, Wakefield, where I showed the work I have produced over the three month residency.

I don't think it looks as good but it makes more sense

21/07/2005

I decided that there is not enough difference between the two stories about peat extraction.

Today I added and replaced two of the shots and altered the subtitles. So now there is a difference between the two videos in each of the three scenes.

I don't think it looks as good but it makes more sense.

From the viewpoint of people

18/07/2005

Storyboard for the first video, which aims to put people in the picture before the other narratives. I documented it as a series of images. I was trying out different ways of telling the story, which I don't think worked well.

Videos and masks

17/07/2005

I've sorted out settings that work, and made loads more space on my computer. I have managed to create movie files of the separate pieces of video. I've been going back to them and altering the timing, colour and sound. I changed the framing and added masks as I didn't think it was very good with a black strip along the bottom of the screen. I still think it would be better with more of a border than I have given it.

I hate computers

16/07/2005

Today I have been trying to render some of the videos as they are to save in different formats. Unfortunately my computer can't handle it. As soon as I manage to get it so the sound is playing alright, the pictures go jumpy, and as soon as the pictures play smoothly, the computer tells me he can't even attempt to remember all of it. I haven't been able to make any version outside of after effects where the text is clear.

I haven't lost any more files though.

Runaway files

15/07/2005

I was pretty happy with where I was with the videos this morning. I've been recording sounds today for the fight scene and I was about to go out to record people but decided to look at the video before I left. When I opened up the project it told me that 23 files had been lost since I had saved the project. I opened up the other version of the same project, which is the same, except for afew different subtitles, and it said the same thing. I went out to do the recordings, and when I returned it seemed to have lost another file. This time it was an image instead of a subtitle.

Because I don't know why it's happening I think I have to work really fast now so that if any more run away then I am faster than them. And I will make them into mpegs and movie files before they can escape.

Subtitles

12/07/2005

I am making two versions of the same video. The shots are the same but I am using subtitles as narration to show two conflicting points of view of the same story.

Colours

10/07/2005

I've been altering the images I have for this piece of video, so that it gradually becomes brighter and more colourful.

Big people, little trains

09/07/2005

I went out onto Thorne moor today to take photographs to be used in the first scene.

I wanted the sequence of images to show the miners loading bags of peat onto the train. However, the manequins were much larger than my orange train. So I had to photograph them with a piece of orange paper in front of them, then crop the image and alter the tone of the orange to match the train.

The garden

04/07/2005

I've taken loads of pictures of the mannequins creating a garden, using real plants and flowers.

I may exaggerate the colourfulness of the garden, and am thinking of using black and white or a difference in colour for the earlier images to represent a change in time.