Project: Music Inspired Imagery - Evaluation

DFB = Dead Flag Blues

This is always fun to explain. We had to choose two different songs, one of our own personal choice and the other from a selection of handpicked songs by Mark. Then we had to create one storyboard for each of the two songs we chose which we then pick two stills from each storyboard which we then create and turn into still images.

So basically it went like this:
One Song > One Storyboard > Two Still Images
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One Song > One Storyboard > Two Still Images

My personal song choice was Brunch - Imagine, and the song I chose from Mark's selection was Godspeed You Black Emperor - Dead Flag Blues.

DFB:
The images I created for the DFB song were photo illustrations where one was a centered shot of an underground sewer with shadows of people, but there is no one there to cast from, only shadows. The other image is a rather dirty scenario where a simple book is on the ground surrounded by rocks.
Imagine
For the Imagine song, one image shows a tangerine falling down a hill which leads to a bright and promising path. And the other image shows two people walking along a path that seems to lead nowhere as one side is covered in rocks and the other covered in hills.

DFB
I wanted to make the sewer scene to be a very dark and creepy place which left a haunting effect on the audience. It's meant to correspond with the line "and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides". I thought I'd keep the location in the sewers because that can be quite a scary and uncomfortable place as it is. The lone shadows are there not only to haunt you, but to show you that something did happen here and as you may be able to tell by the dark style it wasn't something nice. The other image with the book is about the reality of what is happening. The book is there to symbolise made-up stories that are often not true, but outside of this book is a real messed up world of horrific happenings. This isn't a fairy tale, it's real (kinda).
Imagine
Firstly, this song is all about hope, happiness, equality, and breaking down the barriers that keep us apart. There is no second. The image that shows two people walking down a path is a literal metaphor for choosing their own path, which is why you don't see where the path leads to because it's there for those who take it to interpret it as they wish. The buildings and the hills are like sides of an argument in basic terms. Throughout the storyboards there are pathways to either buildings or hills and so rather than following these defined paths of specific actions the two people are taking their own path. The second image is very similar, but slightly more metaphorical. There is still a path which is also about taking your own path, your own journey, but the tangerine is the focal point as the tangerine, in Japanese culture, symbolises happiness, wealth, prosperity, and most importantly, hope. Hope for whether this path shall lead it to happiness.

Audience

I put a fair bit of effort in trying to improvise with my photos. Due to the weather a lot of the things I needed like hills and water were quite hard to get clean shots of. The hills were either too dirty or completely covered in a cloak of white snow or the rivers were frozen up in ice. I had to try and make my own water which I tried to do in my bathroom, but the water didn't have any colour or definition to it so I couldn't use that as you wouldn't even be able to tell there was any water there. I never actually tried creating an entire room from raw textures either so I had to kind of go along as it developed when making it, but I didn't quite count on a few things colliding with each other. I intended on darkening the whole thing anyway though so I wasn't too worried about a few imperfections as they would be hidden within the shadows. For some of the key objects like the tangerine I tried making my own 'light studio' of some sorts using a particular arrangement of taped up paper and torches (very professional) so I didn't have to do much editing on the computer to blend the different photos together.

DFB
I think just about every photo I used had some sort of dirty quality to it which really helps make people think negative thoughts when looking at the images I made. The fact I used photos meant I was using real objects which also let the audience 'feel' for those who may have been involved in these scenes I created because they are real things we see with our own eyes as we're out and about.
Imagine
The tangerines I used were a very key element in using particular resources to communicate my ideas across. I'm not sure if many will get it at first, but hopefully the focus on the tangerine will make them think that there 'is' a message and the composition of the image will eventually lead them to realising the meaning behind the image.

During the design process I was quite organised in the sense that I planned a day (one when I'm not at College while the day is still light) where I would take all the photos I needed for my images and then throw them all together in Photoshop. Whenever I couldn't do something due to some sort of complication I would then do something I 'could' do like my evaluation for the images I had done, so I wouldn't waste any time.

When I did begin the Photoshop my knowledge of photo manipulation came in handy as that was all there was to do after I got all the resources I needed. Even though I tried doing a few things I hadn't done before (like creating a room from textures) I managed to almost pull it off (there were still a few noticeable imperfections).

The weather was the only thing preventing me from completing my designs with ease. It covered everything in snow which wouldn't have suited my images because then people may have thought I was trying to convey something with the snow. It also made finding flowing rivers impossible as they were all frozen solid, so if there was anything I could have done differently it would have either been the ability to control the weather, or build a time machine so I could go back in time and take some clear photos then.