Shape and Form - Final Pieces

Shape and Form - Research

Art of Persuasion - Final Pieces

Problem with sound - initially used popular song 'Taylor Swift - New Romantics' for background of video, however due to the upload to youtube, the song has been muted for copyright reasons.




I filmed out in a park to get a natural feel to the piece, similar to those in the boohoo.com adverts I looked at in my research. My plan was to use multiple models for this piece, however friends were unavailable leading me to only have one model. I think the shoot went well, the model felt more comfortable with herself after I had told her it didn't matter what she looked like as my plan was to rotoscope her out and just leave a silhouette which gave a more relaxed vibe and matched the boohoo.com adverts well.  



I don't have much experience with rotoscoping, the last time I rotoscoped I used photoshop and drew out every single frame (which took forever), it was suggested to me that I use After Effects to rotoscope as it tends to do most of the work for you. I struggled in the beginning with the tools and how best to use them, I found in the beginning that After Effects couldn't 'guess' where my image was going to next, until about halfway through this, it began helping me more. I problem I hadn't anticipated was that I had crossfaded and changed the opacity which allowed the model to appear twice on the screen. Rotoscoping took forever, at roughly 30 seconds After Effects didn't want to continue, so I decided to export the 2nd half of my piece and then put them back together in Final Cut Pro, after viewing the first half, I hated it. It's not smooth and I continually missed lots of pieces. The process took too long and the final piece did not give the idea justice.





During the shooting, my model suggested a hashtag - popular on social media and what some fashion adverts are doing, so I used the #NegativeSpace.

This is my final poster, I incorporated the idea of black and white shown in some of the adverts and also my initial idea. I think this works well, and portrays my message of how I feel about the male gaze theory and what women's fashion adverts do to women. My relationship with  fashion magazines and adverts mirrors that of Janice Winship’s ‘I felt a simultaneous attraction and rejection towards women’s magazines. On the one hand, finding pleasure in escapist qualities and appreciating it’s popularity, but also feeling a strong sense that in order to be feminist, one must reject the construction of womanhood put forward by popular women’s magazines’.

Screenshot taken from advert 

Taking the whole model out left a silhouette that didn't look like a woman making a hashtag symbol with her hands - no detail. 

Red is too harsh and bright - doesn't adhere to conventions of print adverts looked at in research

Black is too dark - hard to read. 

Grey is too light and hard too read.

Two toned grey - easier to read than before, but still hard for audience to read quickly.

Blue - too bright and doesn't link with anything in background.

Nude - blends in too much

White - stands out but unable to read over face

Easier to read now, red distracts audience and the hashtag is too light

Red still distracts audience - leads audience's eye to bottom of page first instead of central alignment. 

Art of Persuasion - Research

Quick cuts, matches with pace of song, a lot of movement from both camera and models, possibly handheld as some of the angles of the camera are unconventional.



Lens flares - summer, multiple models - feels like montage of friends at a festival - selling fashion without prices and unconventional selling techniques.



Slowpaced, not much in the background - focus is on models - colours stand out - colour graded?




slow paced - narrative base with couple at beginning and the 'party', close up of top/trousers/bags/shoes/accessories .



Feels more focused on the clothes and how they look, less about narrative, background is plain - focuses more on models. A lot of movement with both camera and models.

Poster conventions:

• central alligned 
• plain background 
• white / black font
• font needs to be easy to read - possibly sans serif 
• mid shots of models

Advert conventions:

• match pace of song - change of pacing
• handheld cinematography
• movement of cinematography and model
• close ups of specific clothing items/accessories 
• plain/simple background 
• sell the lifestyle - not the clothes

Caught in the Act - Final piece and Feedback

We wanted to colour grade but unfortunately, didn't get round to do it. Unlike other group projects, I thoroughly enjoyed working in this group, all ideas were listened to and everyone pulled their weight in the group. Really pleased with the outcome of this piece, despite the problems with cinematography, I think that this piece can easily be reshot and will work better - I loved the process of script writing and hope to continue it into my FMP.

To improve our piece:

• different lenses 50/35mm 
• lighting 
• vignette photo of family?? 
• Dawn needs to be more physical - only concentrating on her laptop
• no need to close laptop, didn't help character development 
• hug needs to be harder
• some shots not in focus 
• make it clearer for paperwork

Feedback: