When it was Blue

Journal Ex. 1: Three moments

akbardo — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:26:47 +0000

1st moment: Turning up of the speaker volume.

As the dial of the speaker turns, angular jangly noise shakes my ear drums. All that is audible is distortion.

2nd moment: A confused Goose

Silhouette of a Goose appears in the distance; turning to the right, left & right again. Eventually focusing its gaze on me and screeching inexhaustibly.

3rd moment: Broken Fingernail

Two weeks later my broken fingernail has almost hailed but a faint bluish residue lingers between the nail and the skin.

When writing the three moments it provided an opportunity to write a narrative of disjointed actions and moments that seemed unusual & unexpected. It helped to clarify the importance and attention to mental visual images, as they eventually will determine the viewer’s reaction and interest.

Journal: Ten Things

akbardo — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:13:17 +0000

The exercise of writing that preceded the ten things was somehow more important than the intention was when assigned. The interesting aspect was it opened up the stream of thought with minimal restraints. Although it was meant to distract, it also provided expansive questions from which the ten-things emerged.

The ten-things themselves appeared to mostly involve so called ‘big, expansive’ ideas/questions. But only a few that were listed came to represent things that felt unknown or mysterious and truly objects/subjects of fascinations that captured the essence of the ‘bigger’ question and provided a way for them to be discussed. They also seemed to related to small moments or things. For instance, a small childs hands & its gestures, or description of light.

some of the other moments

- duration of a moment.

- glasses/mirrors

- pen, paper & the act of writing

- fabrication

- being wrong

Project 1: Process/Ideas

akbardo — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:58:19 +0000

The idea for this particular project had come from a question that I had raised a year or so ago inorder to comprehend the essence of sight and vision. I hadn’t given it as much thought I think the question deserves and although I based my project around the concept, it still deserves further attention for my part.

The intention was to create an audio/visual environment piece, which would work as research,experiment or investigation in trying to answer the above question. By creating a highly abstract and textural work it lets one try to find their way into the work. A game of “guessing the visual” so to say. While the organic visuals serves as an invitation into the graphical aspect of the work it also stands as a mysterious entity to be discovered. Proposing to the viewer, the familiarity of sight merged in the discovery with sets of fresh eyes or in an unfamiliar setting.

Below are a couple of other variations that weren’t carried through till the end due to time constraints.

zoom

obtrusive reveal

Project 1: Blind to Light

akbardo — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:45:59 +0000

Research Project: Soundtrack Pro

akbardo — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:34:29 +0000

Through the reserach project I wanted to learn some basic functions in Soundtrack Pro but most importantly get comfortable editing my audio for my project in Soundtrack Pro – subsequently in other audio editing software – rather than Final Cut Pro.

By playing around with the controls to the filters and settings one quickly understands their capabilities but I would recommend in reading up on some of the general terminologies and concept related to audio & sound to fully take advantage of the software in a more complex and flexible manner. But then again it also crucial to play around with the software to get a better understanding of its layout.

I learned through creating a soundtrack for another project by collecting various pieces of sound effects, music, dialogue & mixing them together. Here is the clips I started out with (these clips had to be cut from long tracks and also some minor adjustments were made before working with them in Soundtrack Pro).

pieces

1 music

drafts

2 Second Mix (with fades)

FINAL MIX

Resources

I found a few resource that were helpful but in general the available documentation was low compared to Final Cut Pro or other well known software. The reason being that it is a complimentary program to Final Cut package rather than the flagship product of it.

The tutorials on Lynda.com and VTC.com give a comprehensive overview of the software’s capability but they can become dull and monotone especially some of the first lessons about the layout and the instructors. Apple provides some very general/basic tutorials for the Final Cut Pro package and the section on Soundtrack Pro is good to get a very quick introduction to the program and feel comfortable in it. Similar to Apple’s tutorials there is digitalmediatraining.com, which provide quick tips & tricks but lacks in quantity.

A very good online resource for Final Cut Pro has been Ken Stone’s website and also provides good instructions of using Soundtrack Pro. The reason being that it provides instructions that integrate other programs and helps in understand the relationship between each program. The layout and design might not be much to look at but the information makes a credible and helpful resource.

For general audio based tutorial, without being directed to one specific product, I would recommend Audiotuts.com

Technical Exercise 2

akbardo — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:34:39 +0000

A comic turn on the dramatic crime investation scene.

Technical Exercise 1

akbardo — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:34:06 +0000

Start of TBC 2

akbardo — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:46:10 +0000

From here onwards all entries would be related to TBC 2 class.

Meaningful Object – Final Video

akbardo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:51:19 +0000

Here is the final video.

Meaningful Object – Script Process

akbardo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:03:01 +0000

Here is some of the process work for the script. It is in chronological order.