Research - Week 16

28/05/2019

The posters were printed at the end of last week, but I was unsure whether they were among the posters to be put up at SIT Apartments. I asked PJ yesterday and assured me it was and so I picked up six of them for SIT Apartments. I would had put up the posters last night, but the blu tack was inside my locker and I had left behind my locker key back at my flat. Besides, I was really tired after a full-on day of classes.
I intend to put up the posters at SIT Apartments tomorrow afternoon.


Myself, Bethany, and PJ posted the final posters around the Downtown campus this morning, using drawing pins, blu tack (which I supplied), and tape. It was kind of strange for me because I used to be paid to do postering around the polytech in Christchurch.

We had to contribute $5 towards the purchase of alcohol for the exhibition opening and give it to Oisin, which I managed to do today. It shows that I am doing my part like everyone else in my class. 

I was informed that when I pick up my TV, I will store it in Room 205 in mean time because the walls in the RAW Gallery are being re-painted. I will need a tutor to unlock the room for me and I will be able to test my project on the TV. 

We will see if I need a TV remote and I have made a special type of name tag made from paper, which will loop itself around the TV plug cord. 

Towards the end of the morning, I went down to the basement to select my podiums. I got confused about preparing the podiums, one said I sand and paint one and leave the other as it is, another said I have to sand and paint both, and yet another says it's up to me. I talked with Bex and she said I need sand and paint both for them to look clean and tidy, no matter what layers of paint. I also not only sand out the podiums to make their surfaces smooth, but also sand them to get rid of fingerprints.

I also shown the difference between the two types of sandpaper; the white one is to do most of the work and the black one is used to make the outcome of sanding, smooth.

I need bring back some of the poster that I have to PJ and others, but I will see if I need three because there are two apartment sites on Yarrow Street, but only just one Yarrow Street and another on Sprey Street. I will need provide my own headphones for my exhibit since my film will have sound, which I believe could potentially be risky (risk of getting stolen by a member of the public). Bex has told us where to submit our project on the Y drive dropbox, which I have managed to do and copy the project over there.

I spent an hour this afternoon sanding down the rest of the podiums that I have selected to use for my exhibit.

29/05/2019

I had put up one of the posters in the laundry at the Yarrow Street SIT Apartments, but I failed to get access to the other apartments across the road and on Sprey Street. I was uncertain where the laundry was at the other Yarrow Street apartments. I thought I knew, but I didn't want to take any chances on that.

I left the remaining posters in The Cell for the advertising team of our exhibition to pick up, whether it is PJ or Bethany. I did notify PJ on Discord about where I left them.

I went down to the basement to sort out painting my podiums because I had finished sanding them down yesterday afternoon, and was told on Discord to try and come down this morning and found Bethany already there. I helped sand down other podiums and I tried to paint my podiums, but I had difficulty doing it because we had very little white paint and I was being awkward at it. Bethany let me go away for a lunch break and came back to find that she painted the podiums for me. 

I rushed back home to get the pen drive for exhibiting my project, so that I could test it play on the TV (that I booked) while Chris was still oncampus. I came back and he wasn't there. I waited for 15 minutes before leaving, but ended up finding Chris downstairs. He eventually let me test my pen drive on TV and it worked instantly. Chris was surprised since testing a pen drive on the SIT TVs usually never works the first time.

Chris told me that having headphones with the TV for the exhibition will require the headphones to be chained. I felt uneasy about it because I wouldn't know how to do it and he told me to just tell the installation team about it.

I notified the class about chaining the headphones on Discord. Jacqui asked me whether Chris told me if we book headphones or provide our own, and I answered by telling her that he didn't talk about that, but that I think we provide our own as was said in class yesterday.

30/05/2019

I went downstairs to check on my podiums and they are fine. I left bits of paper with my name on them by the podiums. I couldn't do much for the installation this morning because I had been focusing on my cinematography class, which was self-directed today. 

During the lunch break, I picked up the TV (including the power cord) that I booked from Chris. I needed help to take it down to the RAW Gallery, so I got Rach help me carry the TV down and in return, I helped carry her TV down too. I ended up having a different spot in the gallery and had to swap podiums with Luqman because his podium didn't suit his TV, but mine did. 

My exhibit was still suitable and in a nice corner. It certainly sands out from the hallway. 

I didn't need to get chains from Chris because the installation team already got them in the gallery from him. 

I brought down my headphones and pen drive to connect in the TV. It seems to work fine.

We used cable ties for securing our headphones to our TVs. I was uncertain how to do it, so I watched Luqman do his and from here, I knew how to do it and succeeded. 

I went over to Warehouse Stationery to buy pens and a glue stick for the feedback book (hard cover exercise book) that is part of my exhibit. In addition, I borrowed a pair of scissors from SIT Productions. I needed the glue stick to stick a statement in the feedback book to inform onlookers what type of feedback I want and I needed pens for the public to write down feedback in the book, as well as having spare pens in case one or more are stolen or lost in the duration of the exhibition (the next two weeks).

I printed out 11 copies the feedback info, then cut them out and glued them to the feedback book. Ten were glued into the pages of the feedback book, while an extra one was left to tape onto the cover of the feedback book, but I couldn't tape because there was no tape that could be tracked down. I placed the feedback book (provided with a pen) down on one of the podiums and returned the scissors back to SIT Productions.

The artist statement was sticked up on the wall and the TV was chained for me, once I came back to my exhibit to place down the feedback book. I stayed at the gallery space for a while because I was quite immersed in it.

I have been informed on Discord that those with TVs for the exhibition (including me), will need to turn it off every night and turn it on every morning. The remotes to the TVs can be found in the cupboard at the gallery, but I don't know where it is.

I asked on Discord and found that the cupboard they were referring to is the door at the end of the gallery space, so now I know where it is.

31/05/2019

Exhibition opening
The exhibition opening went well and managed to get a couple of people interested in my work. Kathryn and Jacqui spoke highly about the efforts I made towards my research project and that I should be proud of myself.

I have also managed to get a page full of feedback in the exercise book from people who attend the opening.

Photos of exhibition opening

03/06/2019

I received another piece of feedback in my exhibit's exercise book and it generally stated that the colour or lack of colour didn't matter or made a difference, although that person thought colour was easier on hi or her eyes to watch.

Dissertation

I have prepared a Word document with the right specifications as stated in the enrolment booklet and I aimed to try and get the dissertation done today since the last couple of days that full up of helping with filming for cinematography and either having a mental block or procrastinating (which is something I don't do often) with the dissertation.

I had a slow and hard time processing and trying to read in my head, the information from my blogs since there were more results or outcomes from experimentation and research than objectives or planned aims. Perhaps when I record the findings into the dissertation, it will help me come up with skills, techniques, and methodologies that I wanted to utilised for my project.

After nearly completing the Aims, Objectives, and Context section, I had another mental block, so it's probably best to leave it and come back to it in another couple of hours.

I came back to it and still nothing. At one point, I felt a bit overwhelmed, so I went and worked on a blog for another paper. I came back once again and was still in a mental block. I decided the best thing was to not worry about it so I don't drive myself crazy by forcing myself to go too far and build up a lot more anxiety. 

I only made a small amount of progress and I feel as though I shouldn't had focused on this paper today. Having a mental block now is bad timing.



Dissertation (cont.)

Aims, Objectives, & Context

It became my intention to film a short dramatic sequence to show the effectiveness of black and white and colour by using separate versions of themselves through split screen. As the research progressed, split screen became less and less relevant as an aspect of my project, but it was something I did explore by researching and experimenting with. I believed showing both black and white and colour version of a scene would tell us the pros and cons of each other. What worked and didn't work in the sequence with black and white? What worked and didn't work in the sequence with colour?

In the steps, techniques, and methodologies that I had utilised along the way were those like developing a storyboard to visually how what I had in mind for the dramatic sequence and converting that into a short film script, I had recorded down on paper to organise and pin down what components that were needed to be filled before going ahead with the project, searched through many primary and secondary sources that are relative to the subject, in order to find influences that may yet be of some use to my project or connected to my research question.

I intended to use my own phone to film the dramatic sequence, upload raw footage from filming into my weekly blog, explore and experiment with different types of split screen, blending two pieces of footage together that was intended as one in the storyboard, export two video files with different colour grading, in order to produce colour and black and white versions. 

I also intended to make use of active documentation, get the test footage aligned and scaled proportionally when both colour and black and white versions are in one video, and complete the editing on DaVinci Resolve.