Our group took Andy Warhol’s picture of knives and used it for our painting video project. The story opens with my character walking out of the Tavern. As she walking out, she sees her boyfriend on the couch with another girl. The two look to be a little flirtatious, making the girlfriend believe her boyfriend is cheating on her. She then imagines finding a knife in the bag she is carrying and stabbing him in the throat. She then runs into the bathroom while he is bleeding out from the neck. In the bathroom she cleans off her hands and the knife. She then puts the knife in the trash and leaves the bathroom. The camera then fades to Andy Warhol’s painting of the knives. We then cut back to reality. The girlfriend, who just imagined killing her boyfriend, instead approaches him screaming and demanding to know what is going on. The boyfriend stands up, clearly afraid of his girlfriend. As she is yelling at him, he explains to her that the girl he is with is his sister. Once he
tells her, the girlfriend is speechless. She feels embarrassed and stupid for thinking about killing her boyfriend.

Although, I really enjoyed this commercial, it wasn’t the most complex, digitally speaking. It was very simple; however, it was very obvious that the producer of this commercial put a lot of effort into making sure that every little piece was there for the audience to observe. This commercial requires a lot of attention. If the audience isn’t paying attention the entire time, they will have little to no clue what is happening.

Digitally speaking, the transitions are all quick, clean cuts. And the main camera movements/techniques consist mainly of framing and zooming. However, every technique has intent behind it. The intent is to give the audience a foreshadowing into what will eventually occur.

The commercial begins with a view of the house with the RAV4 sitting in the driveway. The audience has no clue at this point what the commercial is advertising.  Then it cuts to the husband and wife happy in bed. Only to then cut to the wife from a different angle with an evil look on her face.

Once the wife gets up, is when the fun begins. The wife goes into the shower, where the shower curtain frames her body to draw emphasis on her bare, unclothed back. She then steps into the shower where it cuts to the blow drier on the floor. Here, there’s an impact cut to show the wife getting thrown against the bathroom wall from the shock she received.

Next, it cuts to the husband who awakens to his wife’s incident; however, he smiles rather then worrying.  This is the first key that they’re doing these acts against one another. This is followed by many more. Such as when he goes to look out the window—the window that frames his RAV4 to draw attention to it—when the window falls down on his neck. He rises up and the camera zooms in on the string, which is framed by the wood and curtain. This helps the audience realize that the window had been rigged to fall on his head.

It returns to the wife where she is framed from inside the closet by the two closet doors. A cut zoom out takes place and a bowling ball falls onto her head. Then the camera zooms in a string that crosses the staircase, the husband trips and there are numerous multi-take cuts as he falls down the stairs. This is followed by a scene with the wife smiling and flossing her teeth with the same string used to trip her husband.

The wife tries to sneak past her husband passed out at the foot of the stairs, but he jumps up and spits out his tooth. The both fight each other to get outside first. As they’re approaching the car, they realize that neither of them have their keys. Yet, the husband actually has his, he was just faking it to get the car fist. He gets in the car as the wife runs back to the house, where she starts smelling in the kitchen. The camera quickly switches its focus onto the stove, just as the house blows up. The next cut takes the audience back to the husband in the car happy because he believes he won, only to zoom out and see the wife on top of the car.

As I said earlier, there’s not a lot of digital effects or camera techniques to this commercial; however, there was a lot of effort put into this commercial, which turns into a mini sitcom.

my face

I chose to take a picture zoomed in of my face, especially my eyes, because I always get compliments about my eyes. Often times, my eyes change colors between hazel, green, and blue. So I thought this was a cool picture of me. Under adjustments, I chose to posterize my face. I thought this made it look cool and gave the picture an unrealistic feeling. I then changed the saturation to +13 because I liked the color scheme. I also feel that your attention is immediately drawn to my eyes, and that’s exactly what I wanted.

prom shoes

These are my absolute favorite shoes. I wore them to prom Junior year and they have so many fun colors. I also thought that they’d be fun to mess with since there are so many different things going on with them. I used mainly adjustments when I was altering this one. I raised both the brightness and contrast. I then increased the levels. I wanted them to appear shiny and that’s exactly what I accomplished. I added the finishing touch of the filter (diffuse glow), and I got my end product.

charm bracelet

This is a picture of my casual charm bracelet. My parents bought it for me for my birthday last year. It has my initials E and A for Emily and Ann. And it has my birthstone – aquamarine. And it has numerous pink charms—pink being my favorite color. I chose to use the brush stroke sumi-e for this picture. I wanted it to appear semi-cartoonish. I then used the liquify under the filters to enlarge all of the charms. This really made it look like a cartoon. I thought it would be ironic to have a nice piece of jewelry depicted as a cartoon.

This movie was very well thought out and put together. There was little to no flaws throughout the movie. You could tell that the director and producers had put a lot of effort into making sure that the final product was perfect. The movie as a whole, not analyzing it from a graphic aspect, was profound. All the scene changes and acting was on point.

As for the graphic ideas found throughout this movie, there were a couple elements that were repeated throughout its entirety. One main idea was that of depth of field. I think the producer used this at every opportunity he could. He used depth of field to guide the audiences’ eyes. Whatever character was talking, was in focus, and whoever was a supporting character was blurred. This aspect became overly evident in the courtroom scenes. Whenever Tom Cruise would ask a witness a question, he would be in focus and those around him would be out of focus. However when the producer wanted the audience to notice Demi Moore’s reaction, the would take Cruise out of focus and place it upon her. I thought this aspect of the design pulled the movie together so well.

Another aspect that the producer used was lighting. The lighting always seemed perfect for the situation at hand. When the audience was supposed to be happy, the lighting was bright and on point. And when the audience was supposed to feel depressed or worried, the lighting was dark and gloomy. They also used the lighting to create cool effects, such as when Cruise is sitting on the bridge and there’s this mystical backlighting on him. He has his dark silhouette, but it’s outlined with this white lighting. Another cool feature that the producer used was when he would portray shadows in the background. This helped add mood to the current acting taking place.

Another element that was continuous throughout this movie was the scenery and sky portraits. Multiple times they would should monuments around DC between scenes, or they would show a beautiful sunset. So many times I wondered whether or not these sunsets were real. They were mind-blowing and beautiful. I think the producer wanted to use these options to help break up the many other scenes present in the movie.

Another concept was the lines. The lines continuously led the eye in the direction that the producer had in mind. Generally throughout the entire title sequence, you ‘read’ the video clip from left to right (which is normal to most people). However, in cases where the video went up and down, ect. the producer used lines to keep the audience moving the correct direction.

Throughout the entire title sequence, gunshots were prominent; either with sound effects or with the splatter showing up on the backdrop. When they were expressing the title of the movie, they showed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and with the final bang came a splatter throughout the letters.

At one point there are lines spewing out of a gun, and the lines turn to vines covered with leaves. The leaves then lead off in all different directions, throwing the eye all over the place. Slowly they begin to turn into a resemblance of bushes. As they fade down, the audience realizes that they’re viewing a house from behind bushes/trees. They would be unaware of this concept if the bushes hadn’t been built before their eyes.

The way in which they light this building is also very interesting. The use a yellowish color to make it appear lit, even though it’s just the color contrast. It’s a cool way to play with the colors. Another thing that the producer does with the colors is when they switch between scenes. The screen goes black or solid of whatever color was previously visible. It’s a nice transition, without making it seem to choppy.

Towards the end of the title sequence, a woman gets thrown off of a rooftop. As her silhouette is falling, they fade the colors so that it shows up in contrast to the backdrop. Hence, the body is whiter when on the night backdrop and gets dark when on the moon. Once it finally falls to the ground, the producer used run stripes to seemingly ‘cut up her body’. They never once actually touched her, but they did add intensity that she would get hurt again.

I really liked this title sequence because it really appeared to me that the producer had spent a lot of time putting thought into whatever he would design. No one could have just thrown these concepts together to get the end result. And I haven’t seen the movie, and it makes me want—the entire point of the title sequence!

Perfume

The designer of the Perfume movie poster must have put some time and effort into his/her design. The Perfume poster immediately grabs your attention with its unconventional depiction of a woman. The poster shows the silhouette of a female with rose petals flowing away from her body. This along with the title of the movie, gives the audience that the movie is going to be a romance; however, the grey scale, foreshadows the audience that the movie may have a dark twist.

The petals are flowing off the page, yet the audience doesn’t feel that the petals stop. It feels as though the petals continue into the wind. The attention is also drawn to the red flower petals. The rest of the movie poster is in grey scale, but these are in vibrant red. I think this is where the designer wanted the attention to be drawn. There’s also a gap between where the flowers are flowing.

The font of Perfume is in a typical elegant style font. Not too far from the typical Times New Roman. The letters are defined with a shadow effect, giving it a mystical feeling. They are also lighter than the rest of the poster, which helps emphasize the title. The title, in and of itself, is also important. It seems to make the audience to believe the movie is about romance, yet when taking the entire poster into account, it is obvious that there is a darker meaning to the movie.

The Psychology of Flow

I was searching all over the internet before I finally stumbled upon this advertisement. For some reason, I feel I’ve seen it before. I’m not sure if that was in person or on a website. Anyway, I think it is so clever.

Coffee vending machines are not the most appealing source of coffee, but by giving the consumer to ‘thought’ that they’re getting their coffee freshly brewed makes it seem a little more worthwhile. The billboard may also add a smile to someone’s day. And most people who are in such a rush to have to buy their coffee from a vending machine, most likely need something to brighten up their day.

I also like who the man is out of focus. It emphasizes that he’s in a rush to get his coffee (aka the coffee vending machine). His movement also contrasts the stationary of the machine. It could show that effort was put into taking this picture, or it could show that someone quickly took this photo.

I do think that the advertisement “Life’s too short for the wrong job!” takes away from the image. I would rather focus on the fact that it appears that this person is receiving a fresh cup of coffee compared to having my attention drawn to the red box with a job finder advertisement. I would definitely eliminate this from the advertisement. I feel that the woman behind the counter should be advertising coffee, not jobs.

Zena Holloway - Underwater Photography

Zena Holloway lives in London. When she was 18 she was a scuba instructor and traveled around the world teaching others. This profession led her to find her true passion in life—underwater photography. She taught herself almost everything she knows. She uses very unique techniques with unthought-of of props and light sources. She manipulates shutter speed and other elements to truly capture a masterpiece.

Her photos aren’t your average underwater; her photos consist more of models. There is so much thought put into her photos. The models have costumes and have their make-up done. They also pose in distinctive ways. She even works with babies and infants. Infants are hard enough to take “normal” photos of, much less taking underwater photos.

She has won many international awards. And she’s done photo shoots for companies, such as Nike, Herbal Essence, Sony, ect. Her work appears regularly in magazines. She recently finished a project to illustrate the novel The Water Babies.

I absolutely love her photos. I’m a huge fan of underwater photography. However, normally when I think of underwater photography, I think of fish and coral. I have seen in shows such as “America’s Next Top Model” where they make the models attempt to pose underwater. But I’ve never seen anything as great as these photos. She captures so many different ideas. Most of the time she uses women as her models, but sometimes there’s infants and animals. The pictures just fascinate me, since sometimes I have difficulty capturing an image on land.