Work for video project

 For Tonys lesson we have to create a video project on a chosen subject. We were allowed to link our publication work with Julie to this project, but I wanted to do something different. When I took my shots of the twenty strangers project, I did take short videos of people pretending to be different animals, that was for this project, I'm thinking I could still use those videos, but the video needed something else as a subject.

I have always admired the art project 'post secret' the photos of the post cards, but also there's videos made on the subject on youtube and another project called '50 people 1 Question' . I have decided to base my project on a 'so many people and one question' sort of thing, but I'm not sure on my question yet, or if it will go in the post secret direction. For the video I am going to produce a at least two min video. I plan to at least as over ten people the question, and plan for it to be a mix of both video clips, sound clips, still images, and text.

Schedule:

by November the 30th, I plan to have task one and task two completed.

by December the 7th have all resources collected and research at least collected ready to write up onto blog.

by December the 10th, have collected at least 10 pages of sketches, notes, mood boards..

by the end of December have filmed and collected most of the clips ready to edit into video format after christmas holidays

by January the 18th have video mostly edited together

After this time evaluate work.

Deadline for project: 01.02.13

I started having a look at different secret projects that have been done on the internet so far.
The original post secret was started by a guy called Frank Warren. The project was started in Washington DC where Warren handed out self addressed postcards which only said 'reveal anything – as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.”  Within weeks thousands of post cards were sent to him revealing a variety of secrets from truly deep personal ones, to amazing quirks about each individual. He wanted the art project to be both an emotional thing for the writer of the secret, but also for the reader, connecting them both and sharing something. He wanted it to be therapeutic for people to be able to get something of their chest. He was soon classed as the most trusted stranger in America. 
From what started off as a small project suddenly boomed, thousands wanted to be involved, Warren started producing the secrets into books, where even in library's where the books were kept people would put their own secrets on paper hidden in the pages when they returned the book. The post secret website was opened where people may email their secrets to Warren and each week the post cards are put online. 

To look into this a bit more I borrowed one of the post secrets book called a life time of secrets. Here's some of the pages scanned in, to show a wide range of the secrets that have been admitted  I thought about limiting the theme of what the secrets could be about, like love or regrets, but I did rather like the random ness of it all, going from something terribly deep to something that made you smile. 

The post secret project began to inspire lots of different projects on youtube featuring videos of people asking people in the street to admit something infront of the camera, alot harder I'd have thought than sending a post card off! This was really useful for my project because it's a video project and it was really good to see that an art project on paper had made it's way to video. 
The best video I'd found on the internet was a video called 'PostSecret: Fifty People One Question' which was actually listed as being done by Warren, but after this I'll have a look at ones other people have done inspired by his project. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAQtbTqDefw
what really attracted me to this video was the variety of secrets that came out to the filming of it. The probably most interesting secrets that came out were a couple who the girl admitted she'd got a book of love stories written about the guy, for him to then admit he'd ran over her cat! The way this video started was to not go straight into speaking to the people, it showed just videos of them smiling walking etc just being them. I liked this idea, if when I've decided how I'm displaying my secrets, I would like to include some filming of people, maybe walking down the street? I liked how it had people repeating what they were being asked at the start like saying 'what's my secret?' and I also like how he didn't cut out the ones who didn't have a secret to tell, cause he could have just easily missed them out, but this way it's staying true to real life, people sometimes don't have something to tell, or would just rather not say at all. He also kept in people questioning why they'd even tell him a secret. If I decide to do my video this way, I will definitely keep these in. 

Having a look at different videos that have been produced some people have collected a certain theme of post cards from the project and created a slide show with music, for example here's a video called PostSecret - A Valentine Video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzq3srbYEUY 
I do also like the idea of a slide show of different secrets with music, from this I'm thinking I might do a mix of both video and still images in my video. 


Here's an example where someone has done the same idea as Frank Warren and gone out and asked people what their secrets are, it's done very much in the same way including people who rejected the question for what ever reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkk1p3T0q58






Looking across the internet the idea of post secret became really popular. The band All American Rejects Brought out a music video featuring the art project to their song Dirty Little Secret. Reading an interview with Frank Warren, the video featured all the post cards he couldn't fit into his books but still adored. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPDcwjJ8pLg
The video features a number of post secret cards held by lots of different people in the video, the people hold up the cards in front of their faces to cover their identity or the card is just in focus when the out of focus person is shown in the background. I liked the idea of the person holding up their secret, but their identity still being hidden by their secret. I will also take this idea into account when deciding on the final details of my video. In the background while the band plays there's all the secrets on the wall behind them which I think works fantastic. 
This was massive publicity for the post secret project, when I asked my friends if they'd be interested in telling me something for the video they said 'like the dirty little secrets video!'









After looking at all these different ways of the secrets being displayed I have decided that I would like to try and do a mix of them, I would like to have slides of images of post secret cards mixed in with videos too! 
I first tried out the idea of the person holding the secret in front of themselves then I read out what I'd put. I couldn't get the videos to upload on here for some reason, so here's a screen shot of what I'd filmed with my cat lady secret. I did like this way of doing it, but I was thinking that to be able to get loads of people to admit something to me in a place quiet enough for me to be able to film them clearly hearing what they're saying would be hard, so I might get people to pose for a photograph just holding up their secret, then this could be the slide show part of my project!

I next decided to do the post secret video idea of getting the person to tell their secret to the camera face to face.

I personally found this really hard, I was only admitting something little that I think on camera to myself, so I can't imagine many people wanting to admit something on camera that's really personal. I admire the people in the Post Secret Videos. Because although this was a very good way of documenting peoples secrets, I can't imagine this being a very popular way of admitting them, I think people would prefer to stay anonymous. 

Because this was going to be the video part of my project, I had to think of another way to include moving image into my video and not just a slide show I had a look on the internet at different ideas. I thought maybe the secrets could be written out in the video maybe it could be typed on screen and I could film that, or film someone writing it on a bit of paper. 

When we first started the project our brought up a fantastic video about idea generating in which a guy started drawing a massive plan on a white board about how ideas were made. 

The video is called 'WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM - Steven Johnson'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU I instantly loved the idea of watching the person write out something. The good ideas video also sped up the writing which made it easier to watch because I think it would drag it being at normal speed, but if I did this with people writing out secrets, I'd then have to pause a bit more with the finished text to let it be read with enough time depending on the length of the secret. With lots of ideas from this video I next had a go at writing down my secret on a white board and filming it from above me using a tripod. 

I think this worked fantastically, I am really happy with how this looked. I would speed up the person writing their secret, then pause at the end so you can read it before the next slide or video is on. 
Here's a screen shot of all the writing videos I've done so far.

From this research into different ways of displaying my secrets throughout the video I have decided to do a mix of both images of people holding their written down secrets then also put videos of people writing out their secrets.
From the start of the official post secret video I have decided to film different people walking down the street to start my video.
here's a rough plan of my idea so far

After thinking that I would take the photos of each of the people holding up their secret, I decided to do the project in a more post secret kind of way and get the person to send me their image they'd take in their own style and done how they wanted.
I started asking about messaging people on facebook asking them to take part in my project explaining it was for college work, quite a lot of people actually agreed to do it, but there was a few who questioned why they'd even tell me a secret in the first place. After two days of asking about 50 people I have ended up with about 30 secrets so far, all done in their own style some people wrote it on napkins, included them self in the photo, some didn't, some also decided to type over an existing image on the internet so their hand writing wasn't to be seen.  I think this worked far better than me just having everyone holding the same white board over and over again, it gave the scrap book mixed up feeling of all the different post cards with post secret, even if they did know that I'd know who they were. Here's a screen shot of the secrets I have collected so far. I plan to continue to keep asking for them till the day I have to put all my images into the video. 

So far I'm really happy with how my projects going, I have about 6 writing videos of people writing down their secrets. Before the end of the project I intend to have about 10 of them, the other four which I am doing tomorrow night.

I am getting the people walking filmed tomorrow afternoon, and tonight I did my opening title idea. I didn't want to just write it like people had done with the other videos in my project so I decided to cut out news paper letters and spell out 'Tell me a secret?' then write in the question mark at the end. I really liked the idea of using different news paper letters because I didn't think they should match, it reflects my video, it's such a mixture of secrets and people and stories. 

Because I did this quite slow I am going to speed it up, then pause when it's all been written down. The only problem with this clip is that it's done under electric light, and the colour balance isn't right, so I might re do it. 

I needed to think of a soundtrack or some sort of sound for my image, and looking through what I've collected so far I have decided to also add a couple of interviews inbetween the sectets. Tomorrow in class I am going to get a video camera and do at least three interviews with people with a question about secrets. I was thinking that I'd not ask them to tell me a secret, but to maybe say if they had alot of secrets, or what they think should be kept a secret, and who they'd tell their secrets too. Inbetween the talking interviews I did think that I could get people to read out certain secrets through out the video, but I think it would work far better with some music in the background, then it fading out when the speaking comes in. 

Tomorrow I am putting most of my video together, here is the order I would like it all to go in.

Today I started putting together my video in Adobe Premiere

I have not gotten a chance to film my interviews yet so I have left a space in the video and audio ready to fit them in. 

Instead of people walking sped up at the start, I decided to flash through all of the secrets really fast before starting with my title sequence. 

I then put 5 photo secrets in the video putting the Still image default Duration at 50 frames.
I then inserted each of my writing videos without the sound, and sped them up to 300/350% depending on the video. 

I then carried on doing five photos then a video, leaving two spaces for my interviews. 

For the audio I decided against having people read out the images, I decided this through watching the other post secret videos on the internet, they were all done to music and it worked far better than just speaking over the video. I have cut up the audio to fit in my interviews I plan to fade the audio into my interview audios.

So far I'm really happy with how my video is going, the films of people writing work really well sped up, but I did have to screen cap the end of them and put that in so you had more time to read it. 

I did take some more filming to put in of people writing, but premiere won't accept the file type, so my next thing to do is to sort that out, but in my final photos, and film and put in my interviews.

For some reason unfortunately I couldn't get my other writing videos to work, which is a shame because I had three to add in, premiere just kept saying error despite me trying to add the files in different file types too, instead of having them in I had to duplicate a few images to fill out the video.
I am still unsure on wether to add my shot interview videos in, I will decide tomorrow on the final outcome. 

   Evaluation. 
This was probably the project that I have struggled with the most out of the two years, I'm not used to filming, or using any editing programs so I don't think this has been a success really. I made the project alot harder for myself with picking two different topics for the video and magazine project. Despite this with the time we had to do it, and giving myself double the work, I think I did alright due to the circumstances. At first I struggled using all the different parts of Premiere but now at the end of my project I have learnt basic editing tips that I didn't know before. I think the vast amount of images that I managed to collect from about 50 people was successful, as that was really hard to do. I am really happy with my sped up videos of the writing though, I think they look really effective, and it shows a strong reference to my research on similar videos like where ideas come from. Despite not being completely happy with the outcome of my video, I put alot of time into it, learnt quite a few things on premiere and also based it strongly on all of the research I'd collected. On exporting my video I am a little happier with the outcome, the writing videos I think are really effective and the timing of the images at the start of the video. The only problem is with some of the images they're really unclear even when there was a high quality image put in, so I'm not sure why that's happened and also the audio goes a little funny at the end. 

Video revisited, 
I have decided to re do my video as I wasn't very happy with the final outcome of it, and I've also decided that to go along with the video that I am going to redo, that with the secrets that I can't put in, I will page a post secret book. 

As well as the writing videos that I have produced, I intend to do a few more of these, then I am going to get videos of people holding up their secrets and zoom in and out on them, then for my selected photos of the secrets I am going to have people reading them out. 
I plan to work on my opening title video and have something similar, but bigger, maybe me sticking up the letters on a wall and a sped up filming of it.

Here's a print screen of all the new material that I've uploaded into my video.

I decided in the end to not have people speaking over the soundtrack, I think it took away the anonymous feeling of the video instead I went with my original sound track 

I have added lots more video content, re writing some of the secrets to make them easier to read, and removed some of them, then tailored the timing of each picture to how long it takes to read each of them, I have put alot of work into this video and I'm really happy with the outcome.

Here's a print screen of my final video. 

For some unknown reason some of my images when my video was exported turned blurry in the final video, even though they were fine during editing, I'm not sure why that's happened, but it's only to a few, it's still a shame though. 

Here's a link to my video on youtube. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwiILujNnyE&feature=youtu.be

Because I didn't get enough space in the video to go in my video, and I didn't want to cram them all in, like I did with my first draft of the video, so I decided to make a little booklet to go along with the video with the rest of the secrets in. 

Here's the template for me to place my photos in on photoshop to then print them out to make my booklet. 

After I have done this for all my secrets, I will print my pages and hole punch the top and tie it together with a ribbon. 

My pages ready to be printed and cut out!

Here's my finished booklet!

Work for the magazine project.

This army magazine is exactly what it says on the cover, each page contains different reasons why they feel you should join the army. The booklet is aimed at teenagers leaving school showing them that their life could lead to a career in the army. The booklet pages have mostly a pristine white background then with the images and the details of the course on top of the white. Most of the text in the booklet is in block captials and in either yellow, black or white writing, this suits the milliarty look of the booklet well because it fits in the camouflage colours. The block capitals reminded me of shouting comands in the army to the soldiers. the publication is printed on thick shiny card.

Gear magazine is a free publication that is distributed into music shops showing the latest gig news, and information on different musical intruments and practising spaces available in the area. The font on the cover of the magazine has a very old rock look to it, with the black and red reminding me of the rolling stones image. The magazine has a scrap book feeling to all of the pages with lots of different articles in lots of different styles all mashed together in the pages. The magazine, I think is aimed at anyone interested in music, with the vide range of articles you could read it if you were looking for a gig, looking for a place to practise or interested in the different articles on different artists. It contained lots of advertistments on most of the pages. The publication is printed on thin shiny paper. 

This publication is an advertising leaflet that is distributed door step to door step to advertise the local businesses. The layout is very simple and the colours are limited and the leaflet is printed on matt thick paper. The aim of this publication is to let people know what different types of services there are available to them in their area like window cleaners, and plumbers. Advertisers will pay for a place each month in the leaflet. The publication is aimed at adults who'd need such services for their house/flat etc.

Joe Browns is a clothing catalogued delivered every few months advertising their current range of clothes for the current season. It is printed on thick shiny paper. The colours and designs all through the publication are bright and colourful and unique which go hand in hand with their unique clothing designs aimed to be bright and colourful and well made. The products are aimed at an teenage/adult audience, it does not contain any children's clothes. The aim of the publication is to show the current clothes that this business is selling this season. 

This magazine is stereotypically aimed at a female house wife audience, but could really be read by the male generation too. It is printed on a4 glossy paper and is quite a thick publication. The magazine contains a wide range of information from recipes, to clothes to gossip. It has the typical magazine cover lay out, with the big image of a person on the cover then the article information down either side. The colours of the magazine are normally pastel colours. It's a collection of lots of different articles on cooking, self help, fashion etc. The aim of the publication is to give housewives lots of different information to help them in life, from recipes to help with saving money. 

The Morrisons magazine is a free publication that is picked up in store. It's an A5 magazine printed on thick matt paper. The publication is aimed at, I'd say, adult shoppers in Morrisons. The booklet contains recipes and related articles about health and different foods. The colours through the publication are bright greens and yellows resembling a healthy foods feel like vegetables. It sort of represents the typical magazine cover with the big photograph on the front, then the article lists on the side of it. The aim of the booklet is to promote healthy eating but also give information on practical delicious recipies you can make by using the produce from Morrisons. 

The xbox 360 official magazine is a publication based on everything to do with xboxs like new games, reviews and new products that are available. The colour scheme throughout the magazine I think are quite stereotypically boy colours, despite the magazine being readable for both sexes. The cover photograph is normally a character from a game they have an article on. The magazine is A4 and is printed on glossy paper.  The aim of the magazine is to promote new games and reviews to an xbox playing audience and give information about new releases to get people interested. 

This is a small publication aimed at putting across information about a business. The colours and layout of the publication is very girly and the swirls and boarder which ties in with the vintage feel of it.  This is printed on A5 card and is double sided. I think this is strongly aimed at the female population due to the colours and design. The font matches the feeling of it too, tying in with the old vintage but elegant tea party feeling. The publication is distributed free with the aim of showing off the business. 

Here is a car auction publication aimed at showing all the new different cars that are available to bid for at Scottish motor auctions. Next to each car details there is a QR code that when scanned shows up pictures and more details about the chosen car. The publication is printed on matt paper and is an A5 booklet. It's aimed at anyone visiting the auction. The booklet has a really plain and simple lay out, just putting across the important information needed about the cars. One is published for every sale, there's one every four days a week. 

This publication is a rock magazine which contains music reviews, articles, gig information on loads of different rock music. It's printed A3 on thin glossy paper. It's aimed at anyone interested in that type of music, most of it is articles done by Kerang, but then bands and companies can pay to put an advert in, such as alternative clothing company's. The aim of the publication is to keep the reader updated on all things music related through the week. The fonts of titles through out the magazine represent a rock grudge feeling, and the colours yellow black and pink represent a punk feeling. 

For Julies class we have to create some sort of publication, a printed one in Julies that we'll design and make ourselves and a video version of it for Tony's lesson. We were allowed to use already taken projects to put into these forms, but I decided to do a new project to fit into it. Here's a few ideas pages that I did in trying to think of different ideas for magazines and what sort of topic I could think of to use.

After going through lots of different ideas I decided that I'd like to do a project like 100 strangers, but do a mini version, and do about 20 different people. 

After deciding on my magazine project topic I decided to have a look on the internet at different strangers projects that people have taken on. I tried to find the original 100 strangers project to talk about, but there was far too many to work out who'd started it all. I did find this website ''http://www.100strangers.com'' which is giving useful tips and information on where to blog about your projects!

This was the most useful bit of information on the website, it was a pretty daunting idea deciding to talk to loads of strangers, so this information helped me alot. 

''Tips and suggestions

Discussions in the 100 strangers group are a great resource.  Here are some useful tips and suggestions from these discussions.

Choosing a stranger

Look for people who don't look like they are in a rush. The more relaxed they are, the easier it is to get a photo usually. Try looking for some people relaxing and reading a book, such as in a park or in a cafe. Start out with people in very populated areas. Usually people relaxing in a somewhat noisy scene are accustomed to the noise and like the presence of other people.

Robert P Baxter
original context

Approaching a stranger

People are kinder and better then you ever think they are or expect them to be. ... I think we want to avoid making our strangers feel uncomfortable and avoid looking (or acting) like a creep.

This is what I do:

1. I tell them immediately what I would like. 
2. I ask them if its ok to take a picture. 
3. Then I chat with them; sometimes i chat for 10-15 minutes( this is the key, everyone likes to talk about themselves) 
4.  I shoot a bunch of pictures...and ask which ones they like.
5. I invite them to email me if they'd like a picture (moo cards are brilliant. I have ones with my name, flickraddress, and email) 

If they say no, I visibly put my camera away and chat a bit. If you respect their refusal, you are acting in the best way possible.''

There have been lots of different ways people have handled the information they collected from the strangers. This example shows where a photographer took alot of information about the stranger and got to know them by having a bit chat with them. The photographer wrote about what the girl did, what she was doing at the weekend etc. I really liked the idea of getting to know someone new really well and them not being a stranger anymore. 

Next here is an example where a photographer just kept the information to a minimum about the stranger. This photographer just revealed the location of the shoot and the persons job. I think the massive paragraphs about the strangers work best as individual works, it would take absolutely ages to read all of the paragraphs about the strangers. Since I have decided to do a book for my project, with at least 20 people in, I think I will keep my information about the person at a minimum because I would like someone to be able to flick through the book and meet 20 new people easily, and I think small chunks of information is easier to take in, and people would be more likely to read through it.

I next had a look at ways the information was displayed, although most of the projects were documented online there were some photographers who'd made publications out of their project.

I first found these cards that had been made about each stranger. Each card had a part of one of the strangers face and the logo of the project. Although the card didn't contain a little bit of information on the stranger, I thought that would be a nice idea. If I had made these cards myself I would have added the information about the person on the card, with the number of which stranger in the project they were. 

From all my planning work I have decided the front cover of my magazine and the lay out of the pages. I have also started thinking about the fonts that I am going to use for the title and the rest of the booklet.

To fit into my magazine I plan to have the persons name, what they do, then what wish they'd have if they could have anything in the world. But then for my video version I want to include that, but also have a short video of the person, not sure of what doing yet though!

My theme for the magazine will be black white and red, all my photos will be in black and white, then fonts and parts of the booklet will be picked out in red. 

Now it was time to go out and take the photos. Since it was quite a dark night, I decided to do most of my project stood in a certain part of the st johns centre in Leeds. All photographs would be take in portrait and with a flash and all my video would be filmed in landscape. I decided that for my video I didn't want it to be serious, more of a nice funny thing showing the different interests of all the different people, so for it I got people to act like their favourite animal.                                                     <<<<< I gave everyone one of these so that they could view their photograph online too!

I printed out some sheets for me to fill in with everyone's details, here are the scanned in versions of them.

I ended up having to do 21, because after all the details and one photograph taken, the person wouldn't take part in the video. Which in the end didn't actually matter, I was only using the photographs and a different topic for the video project, so I just left one person out.

Here's a contact sheet of all the images I took.

There wasn't really a system to the people I picked, I was going to do something like only people with an umbrella but since only about half of the people you ask in these sort of things say yes, I just went and picked the people who smiled back at me before I asked them to partake.

I then turned all the photographs black and white, for my front cover I cropped copies of the photos to a square and put them all into a grid using picasa. This is to print off to do a mock up of what I'd like my cover to be like, here's the collage of photos, then I printed it off and painted it with acrylic paint to get some sort of idea for the front cover.

Using photoshop I went round all of my photographs to create silhouettes.

Here's all of the files ready to be put onto the front cover.

Here I had a go at designing a few posible page layouts for my strangers photos and their information.

I decided that I liked my first idea of having a bit of paper put across the image, I think it fit well with the news paper clipping font that I used for my front cover.

I opened each photograph of the strangers in photoshop and put a stock image of a lined piece of paper in the corner of the image ready to type over when the images are in InDesign.

I next put them into Microsoft Publisher, because I was having trouble making InDesign work.

I next started working on my front cover with the Silhouettes I made.

I haven't come up with a final layout of it all so I had a go at drawing a few ideas.

Here's what I've come up with so far, I intend to put the title of the book (Which I'm not quite sure of yet) on the bottom of the book.

I have decided to call my project 'Twenty Strangers, Twenty Wishes'

I wanted a news paper clipping font for the title of my book, but I decided that if I scanned in the letters it wouldn't look as good, so I found this font, which I downloaded and opened in Publisher. 

Next I needed to work out how I was going to type the information about each strangers on the lined paper that I'd put on the images.

I'd decided that my colour scheme for my booklet would be red and black, like my front cover so I need to incorporate this into the rest of my booklet. 

Because I'd used a stock image for the lined paper it was tinted slightly blue so I turned it to grey scale in the picture effects in publisher. 

But after turning some of the words in red, I decided that it all looked better in black and white. 

After filling in the rest of the details in the magazine the last thing I have to do is to put all of the pictures of the people in the same order as the front cover but as regular photos, like you know them all now. 

I decided that I needed to explain what I'm doing to the reader of the magazine so I added in a page at the start explaining the booklet and what I wanted to achieve.

Evaluation

Like I said in my video project evaluation, was that I probably made it harder for myself giving myself two different topics, so through that I don't think I did as much on each as I could, as I was always caught up with the other.
Other than that, I'm really happy with the end result of my magazine, I think the front cover works best, I love the effect of the silhouettes. 

I think I managed to link my end product back to my research well, and show that it highly influenced me in my final choices. I was pretty happy with the lay out of my final pages of my magazine, but I do wish I'd asked the strangers a few more questions to bulk up the information a bit more. After worrying about what question would be good to ask people, I think the wish one became quite powerful, people gave some quite quick easy answers like money, then some people went further and deeper to say things like they wanted to be out of pain. 

I managed to get my magazine printed on thick paper, so the final print worked out really well. I think If I could do my project again I would have got to know the people even more because I found it really enjoyable to do and I over come my fear of talking to people in the streets a bit.