Evaluation of project

This project consists of a photo montage sequence revolving around the love between a girlfriend and boyfriend. With the combination of image and music, we were able to portray our theme of couple's being apart effectively. In this case it is because the girlfriend has died, as revealed at the end of the sequence. Hopefully this montage will reach out to our target audience of 15-25 year old s particularly those who can relate to the situation of being in love or loosing a loved one.
When starting this project we knew we wanted to work with photographs creating a photo montage more than an animated stop motion. From there we compromised to creating a sequence that concentrates on relationships, as that is what the younger generation can relate too. Part of the inspiration for this narrative was the song 'Lemon' by Katy Rose, as many of the lyrics influenced our idea to have the girlfriend dead, and the tone and beat works effectively to create a motion.
In terms of the title for this project, we felt 'Hand in Hand' was most fitting for a number of reasons. Firstly hands appear throughout the sequence in the form of heart shapes and also as them holding hands. Secondly the idea of hand in hand represents, meant for one an other and other connotations surrounding the theme of love and togetherness. Finally for the motion of the title we decided to have the word 'in' in the centre and have the word 'hand' come in from the left and from the right to meet in the centre. This title seemed appropriate for our target audience as holding hands is a subtle but intimate gesture relating to love. Therefore by suggesting that these two are 'hand in hand' it says that they are together and in this case that the love is still there, and audiences can relate to that feeling.
To emphasise the differences between the life and death moments, we decided to have some parts in black and white and others in colour. Traditionally the past would be shown in black and white but the target audience watching would agree that at unhappy times everything seems grey, colourless and you feel drained of life. With this in mind we made a decision to have the memories sequence only in colour, as people who are apart from there loved ones would agree on how they live in the past, of their happy times together. This is what this montage shows as the girlfriend is in heaven reminiscing over their happy memories together. Then she becomes upset as to why they are apart and rips up the photograph. Then the scene cuts to show how the boyfriend has not forgotten her and is at the graveyard to put flowers on her grave. As well as changing the colour of some photographs, we also used Photoshop to make the girlfriend appear she is in heaven. The effect made was to have the edges fade to white to look like clouds or like a bright light is surrounding her.
As love is the structure for this sequence we decided to represent it in a generic way by having them playing in a park. Through having these simple but relate-able examples of what couples do, the audience can relate as it is what they do as-well. Some parts were more far-fetched in particular the transition where the couple are making a heart with their hands then after zooming in and out it reveals only the girlfriend making the shape. This directly represents how their love is still there even though they are not together. As well as these advantages about the project, there are a number of problems we came across. Firstly as we used a digital SLR camera the images were to large to upload on Flash, so we scaled them all down and in general the motion of the photographs do not flow as well as they could have. In terms of disadvantages for the audience, we feel that maybe they will not follow the narrative because of it's non linear structure. Also they may not realise that she is meant to be heaven but hopefully the faded edged images and the quote at the end reassures this.
Altogether I feel our final product shows what we set out to achieve. We wanted to create a narrative based around the theme of love and separation, that was unlike any others. Although this theme specifically is only aimed at a small minority, it can be viewed as a universal theme concentrating on love at a distance. I feel this montage sequence would have a positive effect if it were presented to the public alongside help centers designed for people, who have lost their loved ones. In a way this will highlight how even though they are gone the love will always be there but its ok to move on.
If I was to change anything I would have liked more time to experiment with animations and transitions to create a more compelling example of love and death. Generally though I feel we experimented enough and created a constructive photo montage sequence, that many can relate to, and brought awareness to these sort of situations.

Week 13 - (30/04/10) - Finished product

After finishing on Flash and checking over the whole montage we exported the file into a mov. file so we could post it here -

Overall we are happy with our Photo Montage Sequence, i feel it follows the theme that love is still there after separation, and shows this throughout the short film. In general this film will be enjoyable to watch for most, and in particular people who have lost a loved one, or even they are apart from them in any way.

Week 12 - (23/04/10) - Using Flash to make montage

Title sequence

Before we exported the photographs onto Flash, we thought it would be easier to create the title sequence first. The ideas we had was that it should be kept simple but effective (like the rest of the film is meant to be.) I felt it would be good to use one of the photos we had taken for the background of the title, and more specifically the final image of the sky. Using an image of the sky relates to how the girlfriend is in heaven above, and the concept of how the sky seperates them. Though the title Hand in Hand overshadows this idea, relating to how their love overshadows death.

For this title sequence we made a decision to start with the word 'in' in the center of the frame then have the word 'Hand' slide in from the left then the other 'Hand' slide in from the right, to be together and form the title. This illustrates the idea that they are still together, as in hand in hand. We made this sequence by starting with just the word 'in' then over a series of frames move the word 'Hand from the left towrds the center, and the same for the other side. Then after modifying the amount of frames per second the images appear as a motion of about 3 seconds. Finally we chose to have it writen in white as its simple and combines well with the grey sky and the following black and white images. - Title shown below -

Photo Montage Sequence

From here we then uploaded all the photographs onto the stage and also added another layer to add the music (Lemon) onto the sequence. we then modified the timing to 7 frames per second to fit to the beat of the music. We had in mind that the song should fade out after the first chorus, as the lyrics near this time say "the flowers in the graveyard are all gone" when in the juxtaposed images are of the boyfriend at the graveyard. We felt that it was effective to finish the sequence at this point in the song, at 1 minute 40, and fortunatly the sequence was only about 20 seconds short of falling at that point. Conveniently we needed to make some parts of the sequence longer to be more effective, such as holding for a few seconds on the heart made out of ripped up paper as well as many other parts, which we added frames to make them appear longer.

Additionally for parts of the motion sequences within the short film we used a fade transition to emphasise the idea of memories and death. Then for the end after the camera tilted up to the sky, the quote (previously mentioned) was shown on top of the final image long enough for the audience to read, before fading out as the music also fades out.

Problems

We did come accross a few problems such as we couldn't complete a fade transition less than 30 frames, so it limited the amount of times we originally wanted to. Also at the end we found it difficult to have the quote up for longer than it did, before it would fade out, because of the fading options. Furthermore during parts of the montage the images jump and do not flow as well as the rest.

Changes

If we had more time we would make a few changes to make the montage more proffesional looking with efficient transitions and make the timing of the song fit the image slightly better than it does now. Also ideally we would have captured more photographs in the begining to alow the sequence as a whole flow easier and more effectivly, although we are really pleased with the results as a whole.

Week 11 - (16/04/10) - Creating the video sequence

After editing a number of the images we then had to sort the images into order, and make sure that the transitions and flow of the sequence works well. After selecting appropriate images we ended up with 313 photographs create our montage with to which we re-numbered to make it easier to import later.

Problem

This week we began creating the montage sequence through using Flash. Although we came across a big problem as all the images would not load onto Flash. We tried a number of ways and were still unsuccesful. As we had a limited time until our presentation we decided to combine the photographs in sequence onto a powerpoint presentation.

We then presented this power point to everyone and answered a few questions about our concepts and ideas in general. A number of questions were asked such as where did the idea come from? To which we answered how we wanted to do a love story with a twist at the end, and that the twist came to me after i was listening to the song 'Lemon' by Katy Rose and the lyrics say "the flowers in the graveyard are all gone" and the song itself fits well with our theme.

The presentation was helpful as it helped us to see what we could improve upon, such as slowing some of the motions down to be more effective, and in general everyone gave us positive criticisim to which we took into consideration.

After our presentation and after we seeked help, we found that the problem was that the images were too large to upload to flash and the program could't handle the combined size. So we then scaled down the images to 600 x 400 (a similar size to the Flash stage) ready to import all the photos onto Flash.

Week 10 - (09/04/10) - Editing using Photoshop

After taking all of the photographs, we then had to edit a few of the sequences to make them more effective, by using Adobe Photoshop.

The first change we made was to make some groups of images into black and white, as these images represent the unhappy times. In particular the opening scene with the girl looking at the photograph of them together, as well as any sequence where she is alone. Also the final scene with the boyfriend at the graveyard, as it suits the tone of the scene and black and white images seem lifeless relating to the girlfriends death. - As shown below -

Therefore the remaining images of their memories together is more appropriate in colour, as it represents their happy times together. - As shown below -

As well as changes some images to black and white i also had to make all the images of the girlfriend on her own, have a fade to white on the edges. This effect will then enhance the idea that she is in heaven, it will look like clouds or a bright light surrounding her.

This is how it was done-

- open the file
- make a new layer (on top of the photo)
- make it white
- select: Elliptical Marquee Tool
- make a circle (hold shift if you want it to be a perfect circle)
- right click -> refine edge ->and drag the Feather icon to the end (250.0 px) -> click ok
- once you've done that, press delete on your keyboard
- then press CTRL + D / or go to Select -> Deselect
- finally, change the oppacity of the layer to however visible you want the white to be

Here is the result of creating these faded edges using Photoshop below -

Ideas for film title

This week we also worked together to come up with a title for this photo montage sequence. We chose that the title should be short with only a couple words maximum, and that it shouldn't give away the ending of the sequence.

Here are some of the ideas we came up with and why -

• Skys Apart - To represent how she is in heaven, up above (in the sky) though it could be risread as living at a distance from each other, as in another country.

• Absense - In relation to how the girlfriend is not there with her boyfriend, she is absent in his life. Though we felt it didn't give the message we wanted for the short film.

• Beyond love - This idea is about how there relationship is 'beyond love', in that they still have this connection. Although we couldn't really represent thing connection and it could be read as death is beyond love (it is stronger).

• Eternity - To highlight how their love will be there for eternity. But this concept seemed to 'cheesy' for the films concept.

• As One - In relations to how even though she has gone there still together as one, as represented with the heart shape transition. But really the idea of the film is that the love is still there not that they are still together.

So the title we decided to go with was

Hand in Hand

As within the sequence hands are a recuring theme and appear quite often, as them holding hands for instance, and in the form of the heart shape. Also the concept of 'hand in hand' means, meant for each other, and other connotations surrounding the theme of love, so it seemed relevant for this montage.

Week 9 - (02/04/10) - Taking Photographs

We had found our Actors, Arran Sinclair as the boyfriend and Lisa Dronyi as the girlfriend, so this week we are taking all the photographs over a two day period. After deciding on locations we started taking the memories sequence first.

We came accross a few problems including that it was difficult to carve a heart and it would be time consuming to do their whole names, so instead he wrote 'A 4 L' - As shown below -

The scene we next photographed was at the graveyard with the boyfriend only. We asked the boyfrind to make sure he was in character and appeared sad, we also decided to have his hood up, as a metaphor for how he is trying to hide his pain. - As shown below -

During the other day of shooting, we chose the field next to Clayhill to do the girlfriend scenes as there were white flowered trees around the sides appropriate for the heaven like images. We found that the ripped up paper sequence was easier to capture by doing the sequence backwards, and then later putting the images in reverse order. This sequence took the longest as we made the heart shape and then moved one piece at a time whilst taking the pictures. - As shown below -

Altogether we have taken over 500 images of which we will look at and select the ones suitable for the sequence and place them in order.

Week 8 - (26/03/10) - Scenes and ideas

Here is a step to step guide of what will be in the sequence to create this story. Hopefully the images taken will be strong enough to represent the ideas we have produced.

1. Female alone looking at a photo of them together (really upset)



2. We zoom into the photo and transition to white glare



3. Have a series of photographs of them playing together in park/ walking/ carving name in tree/ holding hands & hugging etc. (As shown below) > scattered paper in heart shape and names written on tree >
4. Finish this sequence with boy and girl with hands in heart shape together (as mentioned before)



5. Gradually zoom in and out of the heart to reveal the girl on her own making the shape with her hands (to show love is still there even though they're not together)



6. She picks up the photo from on her lap and rips the photo into pieces/ upset.



7. The pieces then scatter around and form a heart shape (iconic imagery for this theme)



8. Cut to boyfriend, walking down street holding flowers, pan/zoom out to reveal he is outside a graveyard



9. He walks into the graveyard and the camera tilts up to the sky



10. Over the image of the sky, the quote will be included as a way of concluding exactly what happened.

Locations for photographs

Also this week we decided on exact locations for taking the photographs. For the final scene with the boyfriend at a grave yard we will use the entrance to the graveyard in Kingston, situated behind Clayhill Halls. For the memories scene we decided between either Richmond Park or Bushy park in Kingston, as a park is an iconic place to see couples enjoying themselves. In the end we chose Bushy Park as there is a lot of grass and flat land ideal for the shots we want. For the opening scene with just the girlfriend we needed the location to represent heaven/ or the afterlife as she has died and is looking back over there time together. So i also thought Richmond park because of the hills, and if we got the sun shining behind her the image would look heavenly. Though Richmond Park would probably be too busy so people would constantly be in the frame so we decided to use a field in kingston instead. We have decided to place the girlfriend in front of a tree/bush of white flowers, as it looks pure and holy. As well as these locations we hope that the weather will be clear as the image will be more suitable in sunny weather, especially the happy memories.