Final Piece

Presentation Ideas for Final Piece

 Ideas:

• Exhibition - Live screens that play gif. format. Have a series of three screens playing three different Cinemagraphs. I think this is a very professional way of presenting my Cinemapgraphs, however I would need to have the screens to show the Cinemagraphs which would cost money unless I find a venue that provides the equipment.
• Exhibition - Three wall spaces with projectors that project the cinemagraphs on to walls. Again I think this is quite a professional appraoch and feel the audience would be intrigued by it however again I would have to fine a venue and pay for the projectors.
• Online - Blog spaces such a Blogger, Tumblr and Wordpress are all effective ways of showing off gifs.

More Developments

These two are very much similar to my first developments based off of my artist, Petra Švajger. To develope further and make these better from my first ones, I used brighter light and made my subject a little less dark and scary and brightened the area up so the subject stood out more. Whilst editing, I also made sure to edit my timeline around so the cinemagraph looped better.

These developments are a bit different and fit more with my artist. Instead of having the cinemagraph move within my subject, I made my subject still and the background lighting move like Petra does. I quite like these devlopments and think they work well in response to my artist and as a further development to create a final piece.

Creating my Work.

How I went about my cinemagraphs:

I started by taking a video using my digital camera on a tripod so it was as still as possible. I then uploaded and opened my video in Adobe Premiere.

I then trimmed my video down to the part I wanted to use for the cinemagraph.

I then went to the color tab and changed the settings to my preference, in this case black and white to fit in to my artist, Petra.

I then exported my video using these settings. This exports the video in to frames so I can edit it into a gif.

Next, I used Adobe Bridge to convert the frames in to Photoshop layers.

When all the images where loaded in to Photoshop, I made sure timeline was open and clicked 'Create Frame Animation'

When the first frame appeared, I went to the sidebar and clicked 'Make Frames from Layers' This creates a whole timeline of all the layers which you can then edit.

Next, I picked which frame I wanted to be my main layer and act as the still image throughout the cinemagraph. I used the first frame of the video and made sure 'unify layer visibilty' was checked.

I then grouped the rest of the layers together so when I create my mask it does it for every single layer at once.

With all the grouped layers I then used the 'lasso' tool to highlight which part of the frames I wanted to move, I did this quite rough but accurate.

After that was done, I went down to the layers menu and added a layer mask to the grouped layers which then applies the lasso to every frame within that group.

I made sure I dragged the group layer above the background/main layer so it shows, as you can see in some layers, the lasso creates a bit of a rough edge in some frames where it doesn't fit with the frame, to correct this, I used the 'smudge' tool and smoothed out the harsh edges in the frames that needed it.

Thats all the difficult bit done. Now I selected all frames and changed the speed to my preference, you can also go through each frame and have different speeds so the gif/cinemagraph looks different, however to save a lot of editing, I keep the speed the same all the way out.

Now its done and I can save it. To save it as a gif, I went up to file, export and click 'Save for Web'.

This then brings up a menu which I've already set preferences for. Because gifs can only be a certain amount of frames to work properly, you have to toggle a few things. I changed a few of my settings and made sure I converted it to 'Internet Standard RGB' which just makes sure it runs properly when used online.

The last part, down at the bottom is the looping options, I set this to forever so the gif constantly runs and never stops. That was it, everything finished and then I saved it.

Work / Developement of ideas

These are my first attempts at creating Cinemagraphs inspired by Petra Švajger. My idea was to focus more on portraiture and lighting which I experimented with here. The lighting and black and white was inspired by my artist but my own take on Petra's work. I wanted these initial cinemagraphs to be quite eerie and melancholy which I think I succeeded in doing.

These were an experimentation though and have some minor issues which can easily be fixed in further experimentation. For instance the timing and framing in the last two gifs need to be edited as I feel they don't work nice enough in the looping sequence. The last gif was also rushed and have a few harsh lines that I didn't edit out.

Overall I really like my first stages of development and feel inspired to take my experiments and techniques further to go on to produce a final piece.

Development of Ideas / Statement of Intent

Potential Ideas for my work:

1) I could create digitally manipulated photography like Geoff Ault. Unlike his nature prints, my subject would be the human form/portraiture in a destructive mindset or based on how society views that person. I will use digital photography to do this and then edit and manipulate it in an artistic way using Adobe Photoshop. It will differ from traditional art in that it's purely digital based with no use of traditional painting techniques used  in painting/drawing. It will be a modernised version of a painting using layers, textures and different digital brush strokes.

2) Cinemagraphs of the town I live in based off of Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg. I will take mini videos of traffic, the town centre, society of the town, pub life, anything relating to town life, modern life. I will use my digital camera on a tripod to create the videos, then transform it in to a Cinemagraph using Adobe Premiere and Photoshop. It will differ to traditional art in that Cinemagraphs have only come about with in the past five years, it is a very modernised outtake on media and the use of gifs. Unlike a photograph or a film, its a still image with slight movement, very different yet unique.

3) Cinemagraphs based off of the artist I looked at Petra Švajger. My subject will be human, most likely female and close up, this is because I want my cinemagraphs to look quite soft and pretty with a twist of different lighting to make it different. I could play around with lighting techniques to make scary or innocent portrait Cinemagraphs. I also want them to be in black and white like the artist and use different lighting techniques like she does. Much like how I stated in idea 2, I will use my digital camera on a tripod to create the videos, then transform it in to a Cinemagraph using Adobe Premiere and Photoshop.



Statement of Intent:

For this project I have already researched different artists that produce different types of digital art. I have also looked further in to different ways of producing digital art, looking at different media, software and techniques. Doing this research made me come across a new trend that started about five years ago; Cinemagraphs. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in which minor and repeated movement occurs. They are published in either animated GIF format or as video, and can give the illusion that the viewer is watching a video.

I looked at the creators of this art form, Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck. Whilst I really enjoyed their work and thought it was unique, beautiful and inspiring, I wasn't quite sure how I could respond in my own personal way. I decided to look further in to Cinemagraphs and recent artist's take on it, I came across Petra Švajger. Petra produces these beautiful fashion fine art Cinemagraphs in black and white. I loved how she used different effects such as strobe lights, disco lighting and a smoke machine within her video which she then turnt in to a Cinemagraph. With these effects being the moving aspect of her Cinemagraph, she still managed to make her subject stand out in a dark, mysterious yet wonderful way.

I was very heavily inspired by Petra Švajger, I wanted to create similar work based off of her gifs. Instead of Fashion, I wanted mine to be purely Fine Art based. My idea in response to Petra is to create my own Cinemagraphs with my subject being Close up shots of females using different lighting effects to make the Cinemagraph interesting. I want to create Cinemagraphs that will entertain the viewer and make them feel a slight connection to it.

To produce my Cinemagraphs I'm going to use my digital camera on a tripod to make very short five to six second videos of my chosen subject. I'm then going to upload these videos to my computer and use Adobe Premiere to edit the video, I will then use Adobe Bridge to convert the video frames in to Photoshop layers and in Photoshop I will create my Cinemagraph.

Before I think about my final piece, I'm going to experiment with lighting and subject matter and create some experimental Cinemagraphs in response to my artist Petra Švajger. They will be in black and white and an experiment of getting used to the technique of producing a Cinemagraph in preparation for my final piece.

Digital Fine Art Techniques.

Richard Davies is a freelance digital designer and illustrator that has been in the business for the last decade, predominantly working with print and corporate identity. His skills range from graphic design, illustration and typography. The software primarily used to create art like this is Adobe Photoshop.  Photoshop is a raster graphics editor, which is used on a wide platform across the globe. There are many different techniques and outcomes involved with Photoshop, one of these is Digital Fine Art painting/drawing such as Richard's work. Photoshop works in layers building up to create an image. This is done using vector and bitmap tools, you can also download a multitude of extensions for brushes, textures and other things which all help in creating unique digital art.

Another approach to Adobe Photoshop is creating 'Gifs'



This Gif created by Lilli Carre is made up of different frames with each drawing in a different position each time so it creates a moving image it's also on 'loop' which means it has no distinctive end, it goes on constantly. This type of animation can also be created on Adobe Flash Professional or as it is now called Adobe Animate.

Adobe Flash/Animate is a multimedia and software platform used for creating vector graphics, animation, browser games, rich Internet applications, desktop applications, mobile applications and mobile games. Flash/Animate displays text, vector and raster graphics to provide animations, video games and applications. It allows streaming of audio and video, and can capture mouse, keyboard, microphone and camera input.

As well as gifs, you can create normal animations, for example animating objects, drawings, videos, anything. You can also create Animated films or mini TV shows such as Toy story, Animal creatures, and so on.

This can also be done using Adobe Premiere.



 Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based video editing software application, which can be used to create stop motion video or even a whole film.

To create a gif you would have to edit a short video and then use Adobe Bridge to convert the video frames in to photoshop layers to produce the gif in photoshop.




Pez is an example of stop motion video which you can create in Adobe Premiere:

This is one of his popular short films called 'Western Spaghetti' created in a very unique way. He takes everyday objects and using stop motion creates a film with them.