Rationale
During the first year of my college year, we did many projects which were cinematography, sneaker advert, seeing sound, photography, professional practice, and filters. The main projects I enjoyed doing were sound recreation (seeing sound), scene recreation (cinematography), and photography.
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I enjoyed the seeing sound project as it was something I have never done before. It allowed me to explore Foley a lot more, as I knew about it before the project but not in as much detail as this project went through. I got to recreate a scene that I enjoyed viewing when I first saw it and I was able to work with one of my friends, who also did the project on the same TV show just a different scene. What went well on this project in my opinion was the creating part as it was not difficult and I found it fun to just walk around the school and record sounds. What could have gone better in this project I think was the editing. I think there were areas in my outcome that were too loud but also other areas were too quiet. I think this was one of my strongest projects as I had gotten a distinction and also I enjoyed this the most out of all the projects we did as I had a lot of creative freedom with this.
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For the scene recreation project I found it to be a challenging project as I wanted to challenge myself and recreate a scene that is animated, into real life. It allowed me to experiment with new things such as lighting and green screen. For me, I think that the final product was what went well the most as I managed to create a good outcome despite realistically having a recreated animated movie. Personally, I think that the weaker area in this project was the part where I attempted the green screen at first but then came to realize after that it was not working as well as expected. This led to me having to rerecord sections and come in on days I was not expected to come in for. This was probably what I felt was a weaker project in terms of outcomes. This is because I found it to be quite difficult to recreate the scene correctly but that was expected as I knew it was going to be difficult to make.
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The photography project was probably also one of the projects I enjoyed the production side of. I was able to focus on a topic I enjoy quite a bit and involve new techniques, such as using new lenses, long exposure, and creating custom lenses. I think what went well in this was the research as I was able to complete a lot of things in this section including new camera techniques, composition, and formal elements. What I think could have been better was the outcome as it wasn't working well with the brief I was assigned with. If I could, next time I would possibly adjust my outcome so that it fits with the brief.
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Throughout these three projects, I learned how to use a green screen, developed how to sync audio to videos, and developed my knowledge of lighting. I also developed my pre-existing knowledge of After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop. This led me to gain a lot of experience with Photoshop, letting me be used to the layout and what skills the software can offer.
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The main strengths, throughout the whole project however, were the practical skills and the context. The weakest area in my opinion was the evaluation, as despite having a strong self-assessment, I feel I could have written more about what to do next time and also opinions. This could have been done by including more information such as my own opinions, other's opinions, or a teacher's opinion.
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This influenced my choice quite a bit as I wanted to do something with either music or photography to begin with, but by choosing to collaborate with a music student for my FMP I felt it would have been skewed as I cannot do much context or research behind it. Due to this, I decided that I will do a photo series that will have a secondary outcome of a music video that contains scenes made from the stills I create.
Topic/Subject/Theme
For my project, I am going to be creating a photo series that focuses on the different emotions of lockdown and how it affected people. More specifically, the themes of being in isolation with how someone feels. This will hopefully be a solemn piece but shown in a way that is surreal so that the interpretation is up to the viewer. The main reason for showing it in this way is because everyone's experiences in the 2020 COVID lockdown were different from other persons, even if they are in the same household. This is the main story that I want to tell through my project.
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Before my final idea, I had quite a few different ideas. My penultimate idea was to create a music video that goes along with a song by Kendrick Lamar. The reason I didn't stick with this is because whilst planning out what I would have to do, it would cost quite a lot especially with costumes, sets, and also with availability/time as the actors I had in mind to help me with this are busy with their school work. I thought that the music videos that Kendrick Lamar creates himself are of quite a high standard so it means that I would not have enough time to create a music video that is of a similar standard to any of his music videos.
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For my final idea, I had two brainstorming sessions, one with my uncle, who is experienced in acting, storytelling, and also editing, and another with a family friend, who is an experienced photographer.
The first session with my uncle allowed me to look into more paths, specifically a documentary or narrative. We spoke about how it doesn't necessarily need to tell a start, middle, or end story but just a story in general (for example a Kung Fu documentary where the person is talking about what it means and allows them to do). The idea of a podcast was also brought up as it has been something I have been wanting to start for a while, which we deemed was able to be put under narrative as I am physically telling a story, but I decided not to do this as a final major project as I believed that there was not much I could put towards this and gain the highest grade I possibly can. Me and my uncle also briefly spoke about a performance video where it doesn't have to be dancing or music, it could be a stand-up comedy act for example. This is when he mentioned that no matter what I end up doing, there has to be some emotional or physical attachment to whatever I create and that way it can be stronger.
Speaking to my family friend, she mentioned that the photos do not need to all be a single subject and it can be multiple telling the same story in different ways. I told her that I want to in some way, include either an artistic style or music as those were some things that I am passionate about alongside media. She said that I could include my art by possibly drawing or manipulating the photos I take in some way, such as the backgrounds or with the actual subject. I also could have created a music video alongside the original photos to help solidify the story I want to tell even more. Then she brought up the idea of focusing it on something I have experienced, such as the COVID lockdown, which multiple others have also experienced. This led me to think about a piece where I focus on the different sides of lockdown and what different people did and felt.
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The reason I ended up choosing the COVID lockdown as my theme is because it was something everyone experienced and everyone can relate to it. It allows me to look more into the topic of lockdown and looking at what effects it had as it was a worldwide issue that many people went through despite their age, gender, location, etc. After further research, I decided to focus specifically on the isolation and loneliness side of it as it is something I struggled with myself and it's also a side of the lockdown many people did not want to talk about. Choosing this topic also enables me to understand more about this time as quite a lot happened during this time that went unspoken, such as issues with alcohol, drugs, and abuse.
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The reason I decided to create a photo series for this idea is because it would allow me to show different parts of the same story whilst also leaving it up to the viewer's interpretation of the story as every person's experiences during this time were varied. I see this as the best way to present this topic as it allows me to go more in-depth with it since I still currently struggle with the loneliness aspect of things. I think that it can benefit me mentally as a way to show my feelings without having to physically speak about them.
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This project will let me develop new styles, which I think is a key thing as it means I can go through experimenting more with photography and decide if this is a path I want to take in the future. As I do have a lot of creative freedom with this project, I do want to include as many of my interests to enjoy this project as much as possible. By including my other passions of art and music, I think I would be able to create something unique. This also will improve my portfolio as I can add the outcomes towards it.
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Three goals I want to achieve with this project are:
- Learn how to manipulate portraiture photos into a surreal photo
- Create an outcome that includes as many of my interests as possible
- Produce an outcome that I am proud of creating
Outcome & Purpose
With this outcome, I want to achieve the goal of creating a photo series about the topic of the COVID lockdown after two years and have people reflect on this time despite the negative or positive things that may have happened. I want the people who see it to relate to the photos in a way. I want to do this by recreating different emotions which some people may relate to. These photos will be portraiture mixed with candid so that I can capture the raw and genuine emotions people had gone through during this time. The series will be put into different categories based on the emotions I select. To incorporate my hobby of art/painting I will be adding face paint onto the subjects to further the understanding of each emotion. As this is a photography project and I want to show the details, I will make sure to also include some raw images and a main edited photo.
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My secondary outcome will be podcast where I focus more on how I dealt with COVID individually and my personal experiences. It will allow me to tell people how different or similar my experience was to the majority of the public. If I have enough time, I want to make a podcast with multiple people around the country / world, where each person talks about a topic that they feel passionate about relating to the lockdown. However I don't really want to include my actual face in this, so to overcome this I might decide to create an animated character for it. This idea comes from other podcasts that I have watched on YouTube where people have not shown their face, so they use characters that they have made.
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The main idea for my final major project was inspired by a photographer 'Tom Keelan', who had worked with music artist 21 Savage, and created a photo that had multiple instances of him. (The image is found in my mood board). The particular image and also his other works inspired me to try and create something similar but focus it more on the emotions than the person. I want to incorporate my art somewhere so to do this I will use face paint on my subjects to emphasise the emotions.
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The purpose of this outcome is to create a photo series that mainly informs people about the hidden struggles that people had gone through during the lockdown. I want it to bring light to these times and how people acted and felt, especially with some people still dealing with the effects of these such as loneliness, anxiety, depression, and so on. I want the people who are still feeling this way to know that they are not alone in these feelings and that others are also going through this. By spreading this more, it brings another light to it and can allow people to get help with it and also help others who may be stuck in the rut still.
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The reason I chose a photo series to demonstrate the topic of lockdown is because of the typical saying 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. I want to get the message across in a way that can mean different things to different people but still hold the same background meaning. If I were to demonstrate this through a documentary, it would mean I would have to tap into serious topics which may trigger some and be quite difficult to show the true raw emotions of this time, especially with people I am not so close with and not willing to open up. If this was to be done as a narrative film, writing a script to show this could be hard to do as writing about such a personal experience for me may affect me negatively. It may also mean actors are reluctant to act in a role such as this due to the same reasoning of it being something that can affect someone.
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To create this project I will need to create a webpage to present my outcomes. To be able to do this, I will create a separate website where I will showcase the photos, and describe them more in detail and what emotions I wanted to express. I will be doing this by either creating a new Wix website, or a webpage on my portfolio/FMP website. To be able to take these photos I will need to utilize cameras and equipment. For cameras I will be using my own Canon 550D camera and hopefully, a Sony Alpha 7 camera whilst I am in college for my second outcome. The lenses I will be using are the 18-55mm zoom and 50mm f/1.8 prime lenses for my Canon camera and the FE 24-105mm F/4 G OSS zoom lens for the Sony camera. The locations that I am hoping to use are a few parks in my area, and also the college's TV Studio. I hopefully will be trying to shoot during the day in direct sunlight and also on weekdays, leaving the weekends for me to edit them and trial the new editing techniques I want to implement. As for the subjects, I may ask a few to wear face paint which is placed in intricate ways to try and emphasize different emotions and exenterate certain features such as crying or smiling. For the editing process mentioned earlier, I will be using different software, namely, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. To edit the podcast I will use Adobe Premiere Pro and possibly Adobe Character Animation
Target Audience
With my FMP, I want to target older teenagers and young adults (16-23) of all genders and races. This is because this is the main demographic that had gone through the COVID lockdown during significant times of their lives. They had either their GCSEs, A-Levels, or College courses, and their time during Uni was ruined or disrupted due to the long period of a pause due to COVID. They also are in the age range where quite a lot affects them with things such as stress, depression, and anxiety and the lockdown increased this. I want the photos to remind this target audience of both the good and bad events that happened during this time as a way of reflecting and looking back on how they were and how it may have changed them either for the better or worse. By highlighting these topics it can show that they are not alone in their struggles and that there are people who had gone through similar things, who they can talk to.
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As I mentioned, there is no specific target audience in terms of race and gender. Despite this, I believe there will be more females who look at this compared to males. This is because I think females had a tougher time during the lockdown as there was still a stigma around girls and the online community, causing them to feel more alone especially as they felt that they could not become part of new communities just because they were female. Males still had gone through this as they may have felt that they were restricted in their homes and could not go out anywhere with their friends and had to stay online, but the stigma for them was close to nonexistent for them. As for race, I do not think that there is a specific race that would view this more. I do believe that those of an ethnic minority (people of color), would have been affected the most during this time as 2020 was the year that there was an increase in people speaking out about police brutality and racism, namely in America. This was brought to light from the murder of George Floyd, where people were protesting for the Black Lives Matter movement, a worldwide movement. This made certain areas feel more dangerous for those of color as they could not trust their local law enforcement. On a different note, I believe those that are part of the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to view this compared to those who are not a part of that. This is because lockdown was seen as a time of self-discovery, as many people, including myself, had time to 'find themselves' and figure out their sexuality and/or gender.
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My choice of outcomes fits the target audience as many people that are 16-23 are using photo-sharing applications such as Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and others. By choosing a photography pathway to showcase this topic for them, I know that the majority of those that see this will be within that age range, specifically because these ages typically have a high percentage of time on social media. Creating a website to view this alongside posting a few images on social media, can grow connections for people with each other. I hopefully want to post some behind-the-scenes content on Instagram as it means that I can gain a better audience reach as about 90% of people using the internet, watches some form of video content. It also gives me a chance to connect with people who are similar in age to me and who may have similar interests and to grow my social media representation.
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To appeal to this target audience, I am going to make sure that I follow the codes and conventions for print and storytelling. These include but are not limited to negative space, color, composition, narrative possibilities, point of view, and setting. For example, with the setting, I will use the current time, as it was a recent event and the effects are still affecting some people to this day. I will also shoot in a location that is known to people such as parks and homes, since many people have had good and bad experiences in these areas. If I were able to, I would shoot this during both winter and summer. Winter because it is infamous for SAD (winter depression) at this time and can be helpful for the negative side of the final project. The summer would be helpful for the good side of the outcome I want to achieve, but as I am shooting this in spring I should hopefully manage to get a few days where the weather is visually similar to that of summer. I also want to break some of these codes and conventions, mainly the negative space. As COVID had times when people were alone, it meant that they had space around them literally. Despite the negative connotations that negative space has, I want to bring to light these negative spaces and how they do not need to be bad all the time, and how they can inspire people to create something.
Research
For my primary research, I will be hopefully aiming to conduct the following things, a Questionnaire, a Survey, and a Vox pop. In these, I will focus on multiple things. One of these things will be my theme, where I ask people how the COVID lockdown affected them and what it allowed them to explore. This will allow me to understand more about how people felt around this time and what they had gone through and use this in my final project. Another thing I will focus on will be the audience. I will ask them questions about what they will expect to see on a photography website about this topic and what they would want to see. It will help to aim this more towards my target audience and make sure that I don't stray away from them. I will also do a vox pop about how people perceive different emotions and why they may see certain images of the same emotion as stronger than the other image. With conducting a few of these surveys, I need to be cautious as there may be a few questions that people may not want to answer as they are personal questions. To make sure I can still get as much information as I can, asking about how it was in general and make sure they are aware that they do not need to go into detail if they do not want to. I will add a few questions, where people will open up if they feel like it but the questions will not be required. The submissions will also be anonymous so that people who wish to open up will not be named, especially for privacy reasons.
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My secondary research will mainly focus more on how people felt worldwide in many countries and locations such as North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and LATAM. I will look at credible sources that will help with my understanding of different countries perspectives, such as government websites, major news outlets, and other surveys conducted by reliable people. With this research I will mainly be looking at what the effects of isolation can have on the mind and what this may cause people to do, the effects on their minds and bodies. By looking at information from everywhere in the world it can help with my reach and gain more traction. I also will look at interviews with the photographers I am inspired by, so that I can understand what editing techniques and skills they use to create the images.
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For the practical side of this project, I will need to research a few things. One of these was how to create and alter the images that were made by Tom Keelan. I will research what he does into deciding on the final images and how they are selected, then composed together. This is done by looking on Google for any written interviews. I will also look for youtube tutorials that give similar results to Keelan's work and a step-by-step guide which I will also try to recreate to try and teach others how to do a similar look. I will take test shots for my second outcome and try to create a draft of them. I might also look at some music videos to see if I can use any of the videos as inspiration for effects and overlays on my images.
To ensure that I understand my target audience, I will make sure that all research I conduct is aimed towards them and that when I send off any surveys/questionnaires to those who are not in college, I intend to include a section to state ages. When including the ages, the results I get that do not fit the age range, I will take into consideration a few of their answers but those that are specific for age ranges that I need, are going to be voided as they do not fit within my data.
Obstacles
One of the obstacles I may face will be timescales, as I am a person that procrastinates quite often due to a short attention span, and my interests jump around from a few different focuses. I normally jump between media, music, and art every so often so to stay focused on my FMP I am going to try my best to include all these passions into one. By including my art in the final project, it means that even when I feel burnt out from one focus to another I can still contribute to my FMP. I will also make sure to create a space at college and home so that I can stay on track with my work for a 2-hour chunk and not get distracted.
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A second issue I may run into is access to people. The people I am hoping to use as subjects are busy with their FMPs and other people I know only have time off during the days that I am in school. To resolve this I will hopefully meet up with my friends on the weekend to shoot the photos I need and those that are in school at the same time I am, will help with the second outcome. As a final resort, I might have to organize time off from school so that I can shoot those that are willing to help.
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The third issue I could have would be access to locations, as certain areas have restrictions with recording and filming. This would be an issue as it means that the locations I wanted to shoot at would not allow me to film on the days I wanted to. To avoid this from happening, I will find out if certain areas have rules about filming and attempt to sort it out so that I can get all the shots I need.
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The ultimate issue that I might have trouble with is equipment. This is because many people require cameras and other equipment for their FMPs. I would like to use the Sony cameras as they are of higher quality, but if I cannot use them I will be able to use the Canon 6D instead to achieve the same outcome. Thankfully, I have my own Canon camera so the main pieces of equipment that I would need to borrow would be the lenses (if any) and a tripod.
Documents
Mood Board
Timetable
Proposal
