This video is the conclusion of most of the work I've done for the book of 100 project. The aim was, using the 'word assosiation game' to say a random word to someone and they would then have to reply with the first thing that came into their head. I would then interpret the word through film somehow, hopefully creatively. Some are good, some not so much... especially the plant one *shudders*. Also, I was quite ill during the filming of this... and look a mess, please excuse this!
Word Assosciation Experiment - Book of 100 from Gareth Smith on Vimeo.
1. What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I think the greatest thing I've developed during this module is my approach to research. I've always been the type of person to take a systematic linear approach to work and don't bother researching things that I can't picture having clear relevance and impact on my work, but through collecting and collating data from numerous sources I've learnt how taking a more scattered stimulated approach to work can aid idea development.
As stated before, I'd taken a more stimulated approach to my work... not on a huge level but much more than I've ever done before and I found it very beneficial and somewhat liberating as it opened up my mind to other ways of thinking. Overall I went through about 4 different concept ideas and various book-design ideas all which had numerous variations.
Over Christmas my original idea was to do 100 stop-motion videos consisting of 100 frames each, I started doing a few but after some thought I came to the conclusion that if it would be very difficult to translate into a book (and I admit it was very time consuming and I wanted my break!) so I looked at picture frames instead... and I went with this idea for about 2 weeks into the module. The main reaction I got from peers and during crits was, 'its boring', I completely agreed, I wanted to change my idea... but what do I do and how do I keep to the theme of frames?
The answer came during a seminar with Fred a couple days after when we saw previous students work, someone had done a video which was quite impressive and he explained how the packaging fit into the criteria of what a book should be. Thus it led me back to the idea of doing videos consisting of 100 frames. I was back to square one.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
The main strength is my final piece and the originality of the idea. I think that the concept was interesting and from reactions I got from people viewing the video was very positive. I was very pleased with the design of the book, even though the video screenshots were not the highest quality print I think the aesthetics of the design and the way it feels in the hand is very unique. The craftsmanship was very strong, definitely a step-up from my mock-up!
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
One of the things we discussed in the final crit with Fred was that a lot of us found that most of us took about 3-4 weeks to filter through our ideas and decide the direction in which we were going and that included me, by that time I still had a very large chunk of work to do - my plan was originally very ambitious and involved a lot of filming - I wanted to do 100 videos!
Fred gave us some good advice which was to generate ideas and explore ideas quickly towards the beginning of the module so we have more time to get on with our work... this will be especially helpful in shorter briefs.
What made my work very difficult (and life very stressful) is that technology just seemed to be against me. I hired out a camera from the video department and originally planned to do all the editing at home on my own software during the last week of the module. After obtaining the software and plugging the camera into my computer, the camera just wouldn't be read... I think my fire wire port must be broken. It sunk in that I'd have to edit it all in college on the very buggy macs on software I wasn't very familiar with. Overall I had to call a technician in 3 times, the programme crashed about 15 times and often wouldn't capture certain bits of film (which meant I had to re-film it), I also had to save all the files to a USB stick as we only have 1gig of file space on our user names - transferring of files would normally take about 10 minutes and somewhere during the process I lost half of my work. Not fun at all. This meant staying in college till 8pm for three nights capturing and editing when I could be getting on with other work.
What I learnt from this is, always have a plan B! Also, make sure you have everything you need before attempting to do something very ambitious!
Due to time constraints and problems arising which were out of my control my research was lacking a bit, I would have liked to do a lot more. Most of the research I have is primary and it needed more secondary backup work.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
1. Have a plan B if things go wrong, don't count your chickens before they hatch because they might not. Have some duck eggs too and look after them with an equal amount of love!
2. Being ambitious is good, but a realistic goal is a better idea. This will save a lot of stress and I might have a final product with time to spare to be more ambitious and make improvements.
3. Once again time management, this includes making sure that you have everything you need in order to achieve your goal i.e. a fire wire port that works! I found the time management sessions very beneficial as I've found myself doing more things than ever. Being in a new relationship, looking for a house and being an active member of the Christian Union can cause a lot of pressure.
4. Use blog more, I've made more entried than I did during the last module but theres a lot more room for improvement.
5. Come to a conclusion of your idea early with lots of time to develop the one idea.
5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
Attendance 4
Punctuality 4
Motivation 3
Commitment 4
Quantity of work produced 2
Quality of work produced 3
Contribution to the group 4
This is the layout with a few examples of the interpretations of some of the words I've gathered from people so far. The top left image will be the shape and size of the book. The images ont he right will be pasted onto each page. Possibly more than one per page for the final but for the mock I'm just leaving it as one. The circle at the bottom left will be cut out and a spindle will go there and the pages will rotate around it.
As the video I'm doing for the book project is based on the visual interpretation of words I've had a look at other examples of how others have translated words into visuals through video.
I found this awesome motion-graphic animation which interprets the words of a song in a very creative way through typography. The person who made the video calls it kinetic(moving) typography:
Wolf Am I (And Shadow)- Kinetic Typography from Justin Lawes on Vimeo.
I searched for 'kinetic typography' in vimeo... and found loads of results. This was one of my favourites:
Kinetic Typography from Stephen West on Vimeo.
I also liked this one, it doesn't interpret words however but I think it interprets the overall mood excellently.
Flickermood 2.0 from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.
An idea I have for my book is to do a 'book' that folds out. Technically its not a book, its more like a poster. It will be 4 seperate sections joined in the middle. Each section will consist of a series of folds. 2 of the sections i.e. Yellow and Green Will lie on top of the middle square and blue and red would lie below it, this would allow it to fold properly considering the size of the sections once they have been folded.
Each time you unfold one of the pages a new word from the word assocation game would be revealed. So in a sense you are playing it as you go along. The numbers and arrows on yellow section of the illustration depict the order in which you should unfold it - you would fold the other sections in the same order but only after you finish the first section... so it would be number 14...15...16...17 etc. - I might include arrows and numbers on the back of each fold to guide the user along.
I've done a small scale test of my idea to see if it could work on a larger scale. It was just between 4 people in the studio throwing words around. You'll be able to see from the chart how it flows. I think by looking at how it went I should be able to manage it on a larget scale.
These were created using the 'human brain cloud' - an interesting way to communicate word association through visuals.
I'm basing my game around the game of 'word assocation' if you want to find out how it works, visit:
Just type in the first word that comes into your head after you read the word thats on the screen and the website will generate a word thats associated with the one you put in. Sound confusing? Just give it a go... it will make sense!
Here are some examples of various ways that books are bound, and by 'books', I mean the conventional type... with a spine, leaves, normally words... you get the picture!
Perfect binding
Coil Binding
Plastic Comb Binding
Limp-Vell um
Whilst doing research I came across this. Very interesting, but kind of gross... but apparently not in their culture. Click at your own discretion!
Title and focus of my work in response to the brief:
The book does not currently have an official title as of yet due to the fact that I'm still developing my ideas but its revolving around frames so 'Book of 100 Frames' could be the 'work in progress' title. At the moment I'm focusing on picture frames and this will be the main focus in my book. I currently heading towards creating either a 'frame catalogue' or a photo album.
Specific areas of research that I intend to investigate and methods that I will use:
The information I gathered over Christmas was a set of photographs documenting frame-work ranging from picture frames to bicycle frames. From this, factual information available to me is: Location of shot, Material of frame, i.e. wood, plastic, metal etc., Colours, Size etc. Whichever idea I choose to go with I will definetly be needing to take a lot more photos, if I'm going to do a 'frame catalogue' I'll need to take a lot more pictures of frames for study, inspiration and probably editing in Photoshop. Another Idea I have is to create a Photo album for past and present students in Leeds to keep memories of their time here in which I'll take photos of instantly recognisable buildings (ie. Roger Stevens building) and I'll cut holes out of parts of the buildings forming a frame for pictures to go into, I want to be creative with the architecture kind of in a way that Jaap Vliegenhart was when he created his awesome Photoshop manipulations of cityscapes (viewable in the portfolio section of his website) but instead of adding to the image through manipulation I'll be subtracting from it.
For the catologue idea I'll need to gather information such as which types of materials are used for frames both conventional and obscure as well as diffirent variations and finishings i.e. diffirent coulorations that varnish gives wood. I'll look into the history of framing and how its changed, what was popular then and now, antiquity and modernist framwork. For the album idea I'll need to find out and make a list of which buildings are memorable among students that will make for visually interesting photographs which will probably be done through a questionnare, I'll need to study into what type of photography and effects which would work best in context with my idea and I'll also need to study the mechanics of photo albums i.e. how the photographs will be held in place within the album.
What I'll use to create my book:
Photography is a very important one, I'll need to create very proffesional, crisp and detailed images which will require me hiring out an SLR as I won't be able to acheive the quality I need on my "point-and-click". I might use black and white photography, I've been exploring it within my elective and have access to the dark rooms almost every evening to develop film. I'll more than likely use Photoshop to edit the photos to get them consistent with each other and make any alterations that are needed. Typography will play a role as I'll probably be adding extra information through text and its obviously needed for the title. I'f I'm going to create a photo-album I'm going to have to do a lot of research into the practical side of how they are made as I've never done anything like it before, and it will probably require a lot of research, how-to guides, trial and error and a lot of time!
Methods I'll use to evaluate the progress and success of my work
I think is important to each stage of devolopment whether it be the research or mock-ups of the final product. Evaluation of research and ideas will be done in notebooks/sketchbooks, browsing other peoples ideas and past-work, from speaking to people which is especially effective in group crits - this also counts for final pieces. At various stages of devolopment I can present my work to be tested, which will probably involved a mock-up of the final product and a questionnare with questions which ask for input on the strength and weaknesses of the work and what could be improved.
If somebody came up and asked me that question, I'd probably say something along the lines of 'A body of pages bound together at a spine with some sort of cover'- possibly not the most eloquent of descriptions so I'll consult the dictionary instead and see what it says:
"a written work or composition that has been published"
"physical objects consisting of a number of pages bound together"
"A collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc."
"a set of written, printed, or blank sheets bound together into a volume"
"a set of written sheets of skin or paper or tablets of wood or ivory"
Those are a few among many of the definitions given by various sources that I've come across, some are very specific about what they should contain i.e. paper, written work, pictures etc. whereas others are a lot more ambiguos, 'physical objects'? The last entry is interesting as it makes me think of ancient writings, i.e. 'books' of the bible - most, if not all were not written in traditional 'book' form, and instead were written on scrolls mainly on papyrus - yet we call them books.
My original idea was to create 100 videos consisting of 100 frames each. I researched a few methods that I was going to experiment with in order to achieve this such as stop-motion, image-morphing software, flash/hand-drawn animations etc. At the beginning of the Christmas holidays I began experimenting with these methods especially stop motion, but after a couple of days of this I soon realised what a drawn-out process it would be to produce 10 interesting videos, I could easily film 100 videos of cars going past and reduce it to 100 frames... but that would be pretty boring.
I did around 10 videos and then decided to focus on something else, but here are some examples of what I did achieve during that time:
Spongebob Stop Motion from Gareth Smith on Vimeo.
Death Cab Summer Skin Stop Motion from Gareth Smith on Vimeo.
To Be Or Not To Be from Gareth Smith on Vimeo.
I decided to instead focus on actual tangible frames, so I've taken 100 pictures of 100 frames, whether it be picture frames, bicycle frames or borders on signs. The work somehow has to translate to a book and I think that it would work a lot better visually, whereas it would probably not be as easy to translate a computer-based video to paper.
Here are some scans of the research that I undertook:
Links to information about the comic books:
Umberalla Academy
Amory Wars