Rationale.

- Rationale - 

The inspiration behind our topic choice comes from my own experiences feeling overwhelmed by assignment work and wanting to be able to still work on personal expression through drawing, writing and such throughout my day. I had heard of people doing creative challenges to commit to progressing their skill, ability, and learning more about their own creative capacity. It makes sense this is also a highly beneficial thing to us as designers, so should definitely be something that is encouraged. Often I was left feeling creatively 'drained' after inputting everything I had into assignments and the simple act of taking a little time for my self to express my own ideas however I wanted ended up having a more positive and uplifting feeling in my life than I had anticipated. Our call to action was a very straightforward one: 15 minutes, 15 days, endless ways to create. Join in on the creative challenge! :) And our target audience was people who are creatively inclined or aspire to be, and also might be motivated by social media as an outlet for their creativity.

Both Lani and myself had a very strong idea of a certain look we wanted for the identity of our topic - handwritten fonts, beautiful/colorful and artistic photos and imagery, a mix of gritty city environment with bursts of creativity like a hidden paradise in an urban jungle. We tried to portray this in a way that fitted the mix of "city meets art" aesthetic that the Wellington region is known for, and this can be seen throughout the visual elements of our website, video and whole project. The public seemed receptive to the logos and banners + dialogue we put upon the pages we created for out project, and some of the artwork shared on the facebook page for it has been amazing, the social platforms really did have alot of potential and opened up an entire avenue of interaction for this project.  We worked some of these contributions into the background image by the 'Join In!' portion of our website.

The website was a big learning experience for me and I'm hoping it will load right on the mac with the fixed div sizes, as it was coded entirely on pc. :P There was a bit more I'd have liked to included such as a gallery of peoples work with links to it etc, and maybe links to other challenges people have created elsewhere on the web, but overfilling the website with text probably would have been just as distracting as it would be beneficial. We felt that having a parade of statistics/infograms filling up the site would detract from the message we are trying to promote -- we want people to create, it's as simple as that. And given creativity is such a broad and subjective topic it doesn't feel right to narrow it down to certain figures or stats generated by surveys done on specific groups.

We are not trying to convince peoples intellect, we are trying to stimulate their imaginations.

Final Video Overview

I decided I would do a brief overview of all the key scenes used throughout our video, their intended purpose and a few comments about them, as well as a few little tweaks I would have liked to have made, in hindsight.

01 - The beginning of the journey - we wanted to show the mundane elements of every day life in the beginning of the video, and sterile, cold repetitive nature that is very present in city lifestyle. Power lines, traffic lights, train tracks are all very indicative of these themes.

02 - On the train, looking bored with life/everything in general, distracted by the nagging of a cellphone. These are the sort of moments we want to encourage people to fit spontaneous creativity into later on in the video!

03 & 04 - more shots of my journey. I would have liked to have had a busier shot for 03, but we hadn't quite figured out the best ways to get shots of crowds and also be able to not overstep peoples privacy. Hence the shot of legs walking beforehand. For 04, this was shot from my point of view - the walking was very in-time with the music track so we decided this shakiness was acceptable. It's sort of a matter of personal opinion though. Some people liked it, while others might think it was a little too much.

05 - this was one of the later scenes we shot to make the beginning storyline stronger. By having movement of moving forward as we walked we managed to get footage of crowds while not focusing explicitly on anyone and blatantly invading their privacy.

06 - bus scene -  we used depth of field to take focus off people in the background, I really tried to portray frustration with the every day situation/life in my expression here lol, it was one of my favorite scenes from this part of the video and fun to film. :P

07 & 08 - the school/uni part of the every day grind. the monotony of study, books, assignments, and everything that puts me to sleep at the mere thought. Adding in these little scenes after our critique session make the point we were trying to make more clear - spontaneous moments of creativity throughout your day are like a little paradise.

09 - traffic b-roll shot showing more city busyness, filmed at rush hour.

10 - again the distraction of a cellphone, this time exaggerated in a rather blatant manner on cuba street with a time lapse shot. My head isn't even shown in this, the focus is entirely on the phone. Basically trapped in the noise of social media, within an even gloomier busy reality.

11 - A B-Roll shot of midnight cafe with it's colorful lights indicating the next half of the video where we introduce the creativity. We quickly list the challenge: 15 minutes a day, 15 days, any creativity goes!

12 - having a daily coffee... I decide to add in my daily creative challenge and begin doodling on the napkin! :)

13 - B-roll of midnight cafe. The eclectic colors and textures really evoke a creative mood so it was a good setting for the beginning of this part of our video.

14 - A close up of the drawing on the napkin - I wanted this scene to last like 1 second longer to see more of the image but we had to trim to fit in the earlier text clip sadly. This was due to editing the timing/audio/scenes for later on in the video already and we would mess up that timing if we shifted things along. :P

15, 16 & 17 - The interview scene with Caela - We wanted to show an insight into the creative world of someone who had done the challenge, we showed several shots of her hard at work, and several of the stuff she has created. The editing of these was done to be in time to the music to make the flow of cuts more natural.

18 - We switch to a scene of me drawing a mural, expressing my creativity out and about on the city, throughout my day.

19 - Photography is also one of the creative avenues we wanted to show, so we have me out on a quick photo shooting spree on my way home.

20 - this shot is what I am seeing through my camera lens, a picturesque sort of scene with the moon in the background, the shift of focus is meant to represent that of a cameras lens adjusting.

21 - My journey home, satisfied having included this spontaneous creativity into my day. :)

22 - The closing scene is of city lights, but seen through a more 'creative' lens in a literal and metaphorical sense. We have added more creativity into the environment around us and it makes your outlook on life in general less one of gloom and overwhelming busyness and one where you think - I can actually still be creative and I choose to have that present in my life. :) I finish on our call to action here: "15 minutes, 15 days, endless ways to create. Join in on the creative challenge."

Creations I made doing our challenge :)

Here are a few of the many creations I made doing our 15 x 15 challenge. My specialty is illustration so it made sense to do sketches or digital art for it. :)

Narrative / Voiceover

Since I was in the video, we agreed it made sense that I do the voice of the main narrative. Fortunately, we got this recorded before I became too ill otherwise it really would have been a struggle lol. We literally recorded this after class one afternoon in one of the study rooms next to the studio haha. It was rather quickly written but here is the dialogue I came up with for it, I bolded the lines which we ended up using...

"Creativity is one of our most important tools, and often it is lost in the mayhem of everyday life without even realizing it.

We want to propose a challenge: 15 minutes, for 15 days spent on something creative. 

Removing yourself from the confines of assignments and everyday distractions, and giving you at least 15 minutes a day to let your creativity roam free.

Being creative has been proven to lighten your mood, allows you to take a break, and allows you to hone your skills.

15 minutes, 15 days, Endless ways to create. Join in on the creative challenge. :)"

I tried to put on a sorta deeper voice than usual.. so that it would be nicer to listen to and not distracting. :) I also tried to evoke mood in my voice that would fit the parts of the video each phrase would be used for. Anywho, it's really awkward hearing my own voice... and seeing my self in the video was a little embarassing as it is haha. :D

Website Icons

I came up with a few icon options for the social media links which are one of the main parts of our idea, to make our website look cohesive and tidy.

I created both a square and a circle option, and the icons either highlight with the main color associated with that site, or with the accent color we chose for our site (which actually turned out to be orange in the end lol) these icons will be fixed to the bottom right corner of the screen allowing people to find our social media profiles/submit work with our hashtag #15x15creativechallenge  to join in the creativity. The circles look less harsh and fit in better with the other visual elements in the website :)

Song for second part of film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfuXHIxb2uU

New song to use for the second more upbeat and positive part of the film. Previous songs we looked at didnt flow very well or were too overwhelming but i feel this one is perfect and is more cohesive with the previous song in comparison to any of the other songs that we looked at

Typefaces / Headings for website

Because the theme of our project is creating stuff, it was important to pick a few fonts which reflected that for the headings and such. A handwritten font really gives off that feeling of art and craft and creativity, so I looked at several considerations to pick something which would suit our project. Below is the logo that we ended up going with for the project, the fonts used give off an effect that it was written using different media and writing tools. Lani liked it so that was a pretty easy part of the process.:) I used a grid to make the logo, and we also use grids when placing it into any aspect of the layout. It is on all the icons we use for our social media accounts...

The fonts used in this are

Dragon Night - this font gives a painted look and really emphasizes that artistic feel.

Biloxi Script - This handwritten script font balances the logo with an element of delicacy giving a feel of a handwritten note. Creative writing is also an avenue people can do for the creative challenge.

A DAY WITHOUT SUN - this font looks like it was written with a pencil and captures a sketchy feeling perfectly.

The same logo as above, placed over a stylish bokeh capture from our video, adding a dash of vibrancy and color. This is the icon we used on social media profiles.

Navigation Menu Design

These are basically the general look of the collapsible menu we will be including, I tried a few different variations of color and icon for it. Obviously the link spacing will be more evenly done using coding. I feel the bottom icon works best, but the top two colors are definitely stronger on top of the black background. The inclusion of grey just dulls out the colorscheme and goes against the look of the site. I have animated the menu to have a jquery easing effect when you click it to make it visually appealing.

I used a bokeh image still from our video as the source for the colors, it includes some really saturated and vibrant ones. :) I like this images... seeing the everyday world in a more unique/creative way. The lights are like a palette of paint.

It could be possible to substitute the red color for one of the other ones, such as the light orange or teal colors. It will be interesting to play around with this to see what sort of feeling the colors evoke. I feel the red is quite energetic and generates enthusiasm, but orange would nearly have this same effect and not be representative of a stop sign. :P Tough choice haha.

Additional Storyboard / Extra Scenes.

Upon piecing together our film, and receiving feedback from tutors, we felt filming a few more extra scenes would help make a stronger impact with our 'narrative' and concept in our vid. We decided to go out and get more busy / "everyday life" sort of shots, to really drive home the point that creative avenues are an escape, and a paradise away from all of this, later on in the film.

These were the little ideas I came up with to add in, and we did include all of them in the end in some form. First was a Lambton quay/busy walking scene among crowded streets, second was to film a commute on a bus as part of that journey, we ended up using shallow depth of field to make the people behind me out of focus in this scene which worked quite well. And third a hectic day working in class. These scenes are only like 10 or so seconds worth of film but they really made a big difference in making the story stronger and added some variety in visuals here.

Website Mockup

For our interim presentation, I whipped up a quick mock-up of the website content, which of course is subject to change. Our Creative Challenge had a pretty strong & obvious visual identity from the beginning. We wanted 'handwritten' style fonts for headings because these reflect tools of art, we wanted to utilize some bold color from our video, and the black and white of the body text and background of the layout make the dashes of color, and all of the artwork, really pop. These were just graphic mockups, not screenshots of the site in it's current state. :P

 Entry Page

This will be our Entry page. Our logo atop some interesting and "inspiring" b-roll footage we got on our journeys to capture video, looping in the background. We will most likely include social media links in the bottom right, although these will be image icons rather than text. The entire icon and "Let's Create!" text are lead you into the main site.

Landing Page

Upon entering the site, the landing page again shows our icon, only this time there will be a roll of images that the online community we have built for our challenge have submitted under the #15x15creativechallenge hashtag. These images will change randomly creating and interesting and almost tactile effect, a mosaic that is testament to the creativity we are trying to encourage with our project. The collapsible navigation menu will appear in the top left, clicking this will give you navigation links to the content of the site such as our video, message, challenge info, quotes etc.

Video Page

 Continuing down the page via parallax effect, will be our 2 minute video (describing the issue visually with added narrative, and then our solution; the creative challenge and our call to action)
I have fitted everything on the website to a 4 x 6 grid, so that the website is visually cohesive.

Info, our challenge, links.

This page will include the written explanation about our creative challenge, the issue and solution, benefits as well as possibly quotes, and links that are relevant to our topic (though these may be on a following page)

It's not been decided whether the social media links should be on every section of our website, but I'm almost inclined to say they should, since we are pushing the social media groups as a main avenue for people to share their "challenge" with everyone and see each others work.

Analysing Websites

http://www.aleeforoughi.com/

http://www.pod1.com/

http://wearespry.com/

http://racket.net.au/design/

We liked the idea of having ongoing b-roll as a background with a black overly so text in the foreground would still be legible.

The use of different fonts to set different moods and evoke different emotions.

Rough Cut for first half

https://vimeo.com/127441572

Website Ideas 2

After trial and error with basic code, I found out the issue for the parallax and have solved it. I also sorted out a general grid structure for the mock ups of the website, using a 4 x 6 grid. Now there are a few more features we decided to try to include in the website.

• First, we decided to have a home/entry page which will loop clips of b-roll in the background with our logo and call to action over the top. This will be industrial city shots, creative lighting effects, anything we feel capture the duality in mood expressed in our video.
• Second, on the next page/landing page we will try to have a collapsible menu (most likely written in jquery) that opens horizontally with links which anchor with points down the page, as you click these the parallax will have nice transition effects as you travel down the page to each section of content (video, about the challenge, about us/contact us, social media links, quotes & statistics etc.)
• On the initial landing page we will attempt to have a 'patchwork' of imagery that have been gathered off the #15x15creativechallenge hashtag, showcasing some of the variety of creations people have come up with for the challenge. The idea is for this to look diverse, eclectic and generally colorful, which will really stand out on the white on black overall color scheme for the majority of the site. Colors always stand out best against a black background. :) These images will switch and show new images at random, and out main logo will be clear over the top of this in white.
• Convenient links to our social media profiles where people can view and share their own work will be accessible from the bottom right of the entry page, and potentially throughout the site.

Website Ideas 1

- Due to the theme of our project being creativity, i felt it was important to develop something visually interesting for our website. While the CSS basics might be enough to make an acceptable site I really liked the look of some of the more dynamic aspects of css such as image rollover effects, parallax scrolling, jquery etc.

Here are some of the coding resource sites I researched about these type of effects..

http://callmenick.com/post/simple-parallax-scrolling-effect

I found this site very useful in learning the basics however their css code didn't seem compatible with Mac OS (I program in windows lol) so ultimately the codes weren't of much use. :)

http://keithclark.co.uk/articles/pure-css-parallax-websites/

http://codepen.io/keithclark/pen/JycFw/

These sites both contained info and code by Keith Clark. It seemed simple enough upon reading but in practice it is actually really tricky to implement these into a layout, especially not knowing which parts of the code alter which parts of the layout and effect. Nonetheless I have been experimenting and hope to get a functional and running backbone for the site as a minimum and then go from there.

https://ihatetomatoes.net/demos/simple-parallax-scrolling-tutorial/

This website included a very basic and easy to follow guide for parallax effects as well and was something I read to get a better understanding of how they work.

Music Considerations Part 2.

In this post I will discuss a few more music considerations, or inspirations. (we haven't determined whether we will use copyright music temporarily, or just source our own be it free to use stuff, or stuff I make, but I digress.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsbiyvpel54

I thought the upbeat mood of this would be really appropriate for the latter part of the video -- once the challenge is introduced, and the creative artwork and methods are being shown. I particularly like the beginning and end of the song, even though no vocals are used in those parts. I find this song to be really eclectic in style and genre so it is fitting for a creative theme. It's optimistic but yet almost haunting in a way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S0rCggUeXs

Again, another rather experimental song that mixes use of electronic and acoustic instrumentation. And this is by the same artist (modwheelmood) from my previous music post. This song is really uplifting, atmospheric, totally fitting of that later video vibe, a happier more creative environment. Almost whimsical in it's charm and atmosphere.

A really awesome feeling track by Ladytron. It's quite intense, the repetition and beats are reminiscent of that daily grind. It has a really synthetic electronic rhythm to it, and would be well suited to the first half of the video, giving off a feeling of monotony, synthetics, a dead world of automated activity and the bleak reality of what daily life feels like without creative "escapes".

Music Considerations Part 1.

I have quite a broad music taste which seems to come in handy for assignments like this, on top of that, I can also compose my own electronic music a bit. (though I'm not sure if anything would be polished enough for us to use in our video footage). There are two distinct moods we will be exploring in the video. The before and after effects of creativity: a life of chaos, mundane repetition, boring agenda. And then the life of color, creative wonder, magic and enchantment. Due to the topic we were wanting something more ambient, artistic, evocative overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcj3AYnnmgk

This was one of the first songs that came to mind for the first part of the video. I am a huge fan of the artist Alessandro Cortini (he has several artist names he releases music under, including Sonoio and modwheelmood) as his experimental electronic soundscapes are simply a delight to listen to, with subtle intricacies, the moods almost contradict eachother here. The textures and tones are beautifully nuanced, both melodically and lyrically (in the case of songs where actual lyrics are involved). The electronic elements feel gritty and almost dark with an element of tension, and "happy moments" feel well crafted, as though we're desperately reaching for elation through an ever tightening gap.

This above song is almost haunting to me. The magical mood evoked through the layered synth and vocals create a special moment. Perhaps something like this could work for the second half of the video? The individual lyrics aren't even necessarily decipherable besides certain key phases "How does it feel?" and "silence...".To me this song perfectly summarizes certain elements of creativity. Sometimes the results may be something that are convoluted to others, but the purpose is merely expression. And the silent world away from everybody else that you cross into during those creative processes.

This song is not too dissimilar from the last, I just find it much more gentle and soothing, the vocals have become an instrument here and the lyrics aren't at all decipherable. It gives off a mood that reminds me of a sunset at the end of a long and productive yet creatively exhausting day :) it's quite funny because music like those I've discussed here are generally what I listen to while working on artwork or assignments. They really get my brain juices flowing alot more than something more mainstream...

Story Boarding

Storyboard Considerations & Commentary

Here are the storyboards we used for our initial filming/idea. Not the most fantastic drawings, but I wanted to sort of see what types of shots might work for each part of our film so did some sketches... we ended up grabbing so much more camera footage than just what is shown here. And this was good at it gave us a lot to work with once we began editing! We had planned to do two videos at first, a 'before and after' our challenge kind of thing. But we were convinced that it would flow better in one epic movie, so went with that in the end instead.

In the first page, we were trying to find ways to show busyness, monotonous, mundane boring life in the city.Shots of traffic, industrial stuff, fences for b-roll. The main protagonist (which ended up being me lol) is basically seen to be dealing with all this overwhelming world around them, looking uninspired, unhappy, and like something is missing.

In the second lot of storyboard, we introduce the 'creativity' into this protagonists life. More upbeat music will be used, creative/artistic shots, an interview of someone who has done the challenge and how it benefited them, more dreamy-like / beautifully filmed b-rolls. What interesting and fun ways can we show life is better with these moments of random creativity. :)

sound links and exmaples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcj3AYnnmgk



 https://soundcloud.com/steven-templar/group-2001-ambient-1-radio

Video Inspiration & Research

Here I will begin discussing and pulling apart a few videos I enjoy, most likely music videos as I tend to follow alot of musicians and have some favorite videos which come to mind... :) I will be looking at techniques used as well as narrative, mood etc.

This video is really evocative to me and suits the music well. You get an almost ethereal vibe from the editing which mostly uses a lot of soft fade from scene-to-scene rather than any sharp cuts. Several different scenes are overlaid in parts to create an eerie, ghost like vibe. The filters on the video, glow of lighting and use of symmetrical balance all conjure up an element of magic and they give Grimes and almost elf-like quality throughout this video. Some parts (like the candle being blown out) are even shown in reverse, and this is during a part where the vocals of the song have also been reversed. The plot in the video depicts young adult (mostly unclothed) people in a forest among leaves, dirt.. it's a really primitive feeling. It's fitting of the primal beat which thumps throughout the song. What I get from this video, is that she is depicting the animalistic and carnal nature of humans. There is a very naturalistic almost shaman like feeling, and different elements are represented, earth, fire, air. In the end of the video, glowing egg-like objects are seen hidden in the forest..like magical seeds. The meaning of the video is a little ambiguous but that was clearly the intention, an element of mystery.

Not a huge fan of this chick by any means, but this song is quite catchy, and the video is a really good example of a video with a clear and strong narrative and how video can be emphasized by the music.They play with dept of field a lot in this video, often with things backing up the story/scene in the foreground to help further set the aesthetic. They also use a lot of panning shots displaying the lovely mansion/scenery the video is shot in (this video benefits a lot from the landscape layout), and close ups are used frequently to display the mood of the characters throughout the video/song. The use of character in a video is really important in setting a narrative and that is why I wanted us to use that in our video. Anyways, when the beat of the music picks up, the rate of cuts in the video increases. These are all solid cuts, no fades and this works because of those beats. The timing of the cuts or action within the scene appears to more often than not match up exactly with the beat of the song and it's really effective. The camera work goes from being stable to being shakey/handheld once arguments begin in the video, and the lighting and color also becomes darker to reflect the mood change. Abstract scenes are used nicely later in the video, she toys with an apple and the guy is shown simultaneously feeling pain as if it were him she was digging her claws into.

inspiration

Screenshots for Inspiration from various clips