show reel | summary of two and half years of toil

This show reel has been assembled specifically for the FILM 210 application process and contains highlights of work created for my design studies since I commenced my Bachelor of Design Innovation at Victoria University Wellington in 2012.

The purpose of the video is to demonstrate the skills I have acquired and honed in that time.

The following summarises the subject/purpose for which each production was prepared, the name of each production project (featured in the order of its appearance), year of the production, and my production role in each case.

DSDN 104 | 2012 | 3D modelling/printing project | role: designer (rendered using 3ds Max)

DSDN 101 | 2013 | Cultural identity project | role: designer (using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Flash)

DSDN 101 | 2013 | Stop-motion project for Caritas NZ | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro)

Personal project | 2014 | Time-lapse clip | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro)

DSDN 144 | 2013 | ‘Princess + Light’ project | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop)

CCDN 244 | 2014 | ‘Blocks + Boats’ project | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro)

CCDN 244 | 2014 | Datagraphy project | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop)

CCDN 332/Williment Travel (client)| 2014 | design project | role: designer, videographer and editor (using Adobe Premiere Pro) **

CCDN 331 | 2014 | ‘La Bonne’ Design Manifesto project | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Pro)**

CCDN 331 | 2014 | ‘The Context of the Colour’ Photo Essay project | role: designer, photographer and editor (using Adobe Photoshop)*

CCDN 331 | 2014 | Expressing a design theory group project | role: co-designer, co-camera and co-editor (using Adobe Premiere Pro)**

* Selected for GASP! Exhibition at New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington - 2014

** Shortlisted for BDI Culture + Context end of year prize - 2014

A blog which features all work submitted for my BDI can be found at  www.bonmardi.com  (use 'Projects' tag)

Full versions of all clips featured in this show reel can be found here: vimeo.com/groups/film210

ccdn 331 | project four | manifestation

Design Manifesto

I look at things from more than one perspective;

I do no harm;

I craft with love;

I question stereotypes;

I am organised;

I am never finished;

I adapt;

 I stimulate more than one sense with my work;

I do not waste my resources;

I value the practice of remediation;

I am engaged in a two-way learning process;

I design my world & my world informs my design:

It's all two-way

ccdn 244 | project two | hand-in

This is my final hand-in. I have chosen three photographs from my remediation exercise where I projected my best three Holga camera images onto my back and then photographed it.

The final image is a composite of the three that were most successful in expressing the idea of eInk as a way of carrying my family with me everywhere. Literally on my back, just as I do with my conventional tattoo.

These are the images:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

This is my final presentation PDF:

And this is my project, remediated as a video:

ccdn 332 | project one | hand-in

Here is the video I submitted to illustrate the first assignment for design +

ccdn 331 | project 1 | hand-in

Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way.

Hand-in: 

The final part of the process: 

Daisy and I hadn't really seen Chris since the project had started and we weren't really sure what stage he was up to when we came in to campus this morning.

We caught up with Chris after the 331 lecture to see what he had done. He had added the sound which needed some tweaking and then, while we watched and discussed our design decisions, he added the text. This is the final version we handed in.

Reflections on the group project:

The output:

I feel like we answered the brief with a strong project. I am pleased that it fulfils my own expectations regarding clarity of message and refinement of vision. The object we made from the wood we were given was playful and yet there was a mature quality to the whole concept in that it didn't just fall back on the easy option of destroying it, which was an idea we had toyed with originally. I feel that the message of the video is twofold: one is about sustainability but the overarching idea is about how it is possible to draw the attention of your audience to everyday items (that might otherwise be overlooked) through thoughtful design.

Because we did not finish in a timely manner, despite my best intentions, mean that I feel what we handed in was not as polished as it could have been.

What I learnt through the group-project dynamic:

From the outset I really bought into Daisy's initial jumping off point (the pencil) because she justified the connection through the research she had done into the type of wood we'd been given. She had found that cedar is typically used for pencils. So it not a coincidence that we ended up with a (giant) pencil, and I really like that this was such a considered choice. Daisy is also an excellent communicator and is good at sharing her ideas without being overbearing. We are friends, so there is an established rapport between us which makes working together fun. Even though familiarity can be a positive, it can also be the source of distraction in a group project. It turns out that Daisy and I are also effective at being efficient with our time when completing tasks together, so this was not a problem we had to contend with.

Chris was an unknown quantity for both Daisy and I, so I was curious to know how things would work out when we were initially deciding how to divide up the work. As it turned out, everyone performed their designated roles really well, however communication was not something that characterised the way we ended up working with Chris. This did make the project harder to resolve between all three of us. As someone who places great value on communication I found this challenging. Happily, in the end I do feel Chris' input, even though it occurred late in the proceedings, was valuable and justified. I thought the music he composed worked well and his input around the text was thoughtful and elegant. It would have been preferable not to have been completing Chris' part quite so late on the day of our hand-in but I recognise that I could have made Daisy's and my timing expectations clearer to Chris.

For my own part I relish project management and took this role on without hesitation. It also felt good to get back into making the pencil after a trimester away from the workshop. I don't deny I have much to learn about Premiere Pro but enjoyed working with it again and think it was good I made an initial clip to help us understand the final requirements better. For someone who doesn't major in media design, I feel I can be proud of what I achieved with my initial clip. It confirms my theory about this degree being really useful for better understanding the work that future specialists do for me. I don't need to be able to use technical applications brilliantly but I do need to understand what they are capable of producing and how they work. I definitely learnt more about what is needed in terms of camera-work for video production and enjoyed my first foray into the school's ergonomics lab.

ccdn 231 | project 1 hand in

toilets

I decided to investigate further the act of going to the toilet. I have made a documentary-style video that depicts five people in the act of going to the toilet. Each individual clip represents one of the five senses. (i.e. five people, five senses). The clues are in the words which are overlaid as 'handwritten' script - taken from their written responses to my interview questions.

None of the clips involved nudity and the identity of each participant was deliberately obscured. One of the greater challenges was therefore to maintain the viewer's interest in the final edited version of the combined clips.

I did this through interesting angles, starting the crawling text at a moment where the viewer might be needing new stimuli and also when the sound of urinating commenced (so as to distract from any discomfort the viewer might be feeling).

The act of making and showing this video has almost become more important than the investigation of the actual activity. Finding willing participants was a little difficult at first but once they had seen how it was to be handled I was able to convince five people to take part.

The process was two part - firstly I asked each person to be filmed in the act of going to the toilet in a variety of locations. I then asked them to answer three questions for each of the five senses. I used this material as content for the crawling text in each of the scenes. I took the best responses for each sense and added it to the scene of the person responsible for writing it. So the words that scrawl across the screen in each room are the words of the person being filmed.

I then took the remaining material and used it for my physical hand-in. This was a piece of toilet wall covered in 'graffiti' about each of the five senses. I have therefore fulfilled the brief requirement of 500 words by submitting about 200 words in the video and the remainder of the 500 on the 'graffitti wall.

For my wall I was inspired by the cubicle on level one at the Vivian Street campus.

Here is my physical submission:

Front

I decided to use a mix of words and drawings to illustrate my board. The coloured words in 'tag' style (which are the headings for the five senses) and the 'tag' lettering is by Nikolai Scott.

And here is my video:

Note: For a short time, my video is watchable on this blog. After 31 August 2013 it will go 'Private'.

dsdn 101 | project 3 caritas clip - hand-in

My Caritas video as per our project three brief:

After starting with a very different vision, where I planned on using characters based on the drawings of my three year old daughter to animate my clip, I decided to simplify things. After our initial presentation before study break, I decided to use photography combined with illustrations so that it had the same feeling but incorporated a real human into my story.

I actually dreamed about this clip a couple of weeks ago, a hand rubbing each drawing out as the viewer is shown the options available to participants in the Caritas Challenge. I got out of bed and ran to my desk to put the white board on top of my keyboard so I would remember the idea in the morning. This is exactly what my dream looked like, so I am pleased from that perspective.
I really wanted to focus on how the challenge offers a variety of choices as stated in my initial brief. (here). I am satisfied with the level of success I've had in this regard.

Software stuff:

I downloaded a really great application called DSLRemote  that allowed me to shoot all my images (I imported a total of 777 JPEGs into Premiere Pro for the editing phase) at regular intervals and remotely (from the PC) without jerking the camera. Thus I had a high level of control over the smoothness of the finished product. It was a trial download but even at 175 USD it made me want to buy it due to its ease of use and the superior results.

I really got to grips with Adobe Photoshop during this project. I have a much better understanding of how the layers work and now have a huge amount of keyboard shortcuts committed to memory - (hopefully, for a while). It's such a versatile programme and I loved the simple animation tools Elle showed me - this helped visualise my scenes quickly as I worked.

I was a little intimidated by the seriousness of the Adobe Premiere Pro workspace when I first opened it up. It looks like it's really complicated but actually it's not that bad. I owe a big thanks to the Youtube tutors who basically taught me Pr in half a day.

Contributors & acknowledgements:

On that note, a big shout out to my music guy Luke Williams who is eleven. He composed AND played the 60 second piece you can hear playing during the clip. It works perfectly with the imagery and I was really lucky to have him contribute to my project. Same to my budding artist Rory who is prolific in her design and art production. I REALLY want to make a story out of her characters now that I have all this animation knowledge. Double thumbs up to G who is the ultimate gaffa/grip/best boy and PC fixer dude. He's also a pretty awesome husband.

Oh and finally one last thanks to my three 101 tutors, Brooke, Dana and Eli who each gave generously of their time and experience this trimester and helped inspired me with my work. I seriously loved this paper.

Overall, even though I can always see things I could improve in my final hand-ins, I am really happy with this clip. I'll wrap this up before this starts reading like an awards acceptance speech.

Here it is...enjoy:

©2013 helenkwilliams

dsdn 101 | project 2 hand-in

Part 1: 200 word design brief

In this project I draw on the cultures, both ethnic and urban, that have shaped me. 

I have lived in several countries and this has led me to identify with a variety of cultures. I will focus in particular on the Australian Aboriginal culture in this project because I am able to draw comparisons between that way of living and my own experience. 

While I know I have aboriginal ancestry, there is no formal confirmation of this. I believe I have readily adopted other cultures throughout my travels because the history of my own cultural heritage is so enigmatic. My project will identify and express this similarity.

Within my urban existence I have developed an affinity with social media, which I have used to support and broaden both my personal and business lives. My personal taste in music, entertainment, and politics, as well as my travels, has been well documented in Facebook and it also provides a means of connecting with old friends. My project will therefore show how intrinsic networking and social media is to my life.

I will research precedents of aboriginal art for representing my pattern and I will further abstract these to express my ideas.

My personal way of moving is usually high paced, driven and sometimes manic and these traits will characterise my work.

Part 2: One initial pattern design

Part 2: initial pattern design ©2013 helenkwilliams

Here I tried to simplify my concept so that it will be the most concise expression of my ideas. it is one singular motif (like the sngle cell of an organism or a building block) that goes together with others to form a much larger, more complex form.

Part 3: Collate and present eight of your viewfinder drawings from this project.                          

Part 3: initial pattern design ©2013 helenkwilliams

Part 4: One final pattern drawn in Illustrator

Here I have taken my motif and used it to generate a larger and more complex design that could potentially grow into an infinitely repeating pattern.

Part 4: final pattern design done in Illustrator ©2013 helenkwilliams

Because I wanted to show how it would work as a more complex pattern I have added this image of the pattern 

©2013 helenkwilliams

Part 5: Storyboard - A set of visuals sequentially expressing the use of my narrative. Showing concept though use of drawings and comments.


                 

Part 5: Storyboard with key ©2013 helenkwilliams

Part 6: ONE 10 - 30 second clip to depict my pattern in motion.