My Future: Video... and... Digital Media??

Laurie and Rich spoke in our lecture this about future Digital Media courses that are available for me to take in the future years to come. I found it very fitting that they came to promote these classes this week because I had been thinking about where I wanted to develop myself as a video artist, and how I can make the most of what this program has to offer me. To be quite honest, I’m really not that technologically adept. My mind doesn’t work well with tiny logistical things, calculations, and five million buttons. If anything, it drives me crazy. I may be over exaggerating when I say this because of course, I do have some experience with After Effects, Photoshop and Final Cut, but it’s very minimal and it took me a long time to learn it. I can’t say that I gravitate towards picking things up like that too quickly.

After Laurie and Rich showed a few examples of the projects that past years had completed, I got to see that it was more about creativity, ideas, and how to use different mediums of digital media to produce these projects. That is something I definitely excel in. I’m a very visual human and although I may lack the tech savvy to produce what I see in my head, one thing I definitely possess, is vision. I actually work as a learning and growing freelance video artist under the moniker lovehard productions. Sometimes I get hired in partnership with another local production company called Blacksuits&Brokenhearts to cover parties and club events in the Toronto nightiming scene. After some experience working as a videographer, I came to the conclusion very early in the game that this is not how I want to establish lovehard’s name in this city. It is a respectable and fun job for income, but it does nothing for me in terms of exercising my creativity. I want to work with artists of all forms and produce moving visuals of all shapes and colors to reflect their heART and mine.

With all that being said, everything that Laurie and Rich said during lecture was the answer to exactly how I’m going to achieve that. Learning these up and coming innovative techniques and programs are exactly what I need to enhance and develop the skills I need for what’s to come. I’m not quite sure what that is yet, but all I know is, I just want to create, create, create.

All in all, this course has been the most eye opening and beneficial to me. All the lectures were inspiring, interesting and I learned the most from. I love the labs and the in-class critiques. I liked seeing what other students were capable of producing, their strengths, and being inspired by their projects. I also really think that in future, if I dedicate more time to practicing these programs, I’d be able to come up with amazing projects.

I'll leave you with a video that I worked on in collaboration with Blacksuits & Brokenhearts. I shot all the footage, and he cut the video. Enjoy!

caché fridays @ atelier from Justin Borja on Vimeo.

QR is the new BAR CODE. Duh!

If you don't know, well now you know. QR codes are takin over our raaddioooosssss... Well, kind of, sorta. At least it was for Space Invader over here. Check this:



This is insane! QR codes, two dimensional, pixely looking cube things that can be read by certain applications on cellphones that have a camera. The whole idea is to point, shoot, let the phone read the code and de-code it! It can lead you to a website, to a picture, uncover a message... anything!

It's a really cool technology that has been big already in Japan for the last year or two... and it's only NOW that North America is catching on. Blackberries are now offering a QR code for every individual phone so that you can exchange contacts with someone much faster by just taking a picture of their QR code. It's a good time to take advantage of this technology.

I am starting a blog for this party called The Main Ingredient. It happens at least once every month and usually at Revival/Stone Lounge. This party is purely motown, old school hip hop, classic R&B, neo soul... the goodies that you don't usually hear in Entertainment district. Anyways. I was definitely thinking about incorporating some of these QR code ideas into our advertising and promotions. Maybe even having QR codes posted that lead you to promo videos that I'd make! Anything... my mind is starting to work, work, work at incorporating this technology someway somehow...

Web 2.0 ... You Dun Know!

Ah. Alas. I was born into the era. In grade five or six was when my family first got dial-up internet. It was a big deal. I used to keep the land line busy for hours and get into so much trouble with my dad trying to call the house! So much has evolved since then in terms of the web. Who would've thought that everything that we use it for would be possible, sixty years ago?!

Characteristics that define Web 2.0

1. Dynamic Content

For example:
RSS feeds! Really Simple Syndication. I've been trying to push this on everyone to get onto using an RSS feed reader. I use New News Wire on Mac and just copy and paste url addresses of blogs or websites that I want to follow. It's like getting your own personal newspaper at your desktop. I am a big fan.
This is dynamic content because it combines different elements onto one platform. All these blogs can get fed into a 'reader' that acts like your news paper. It is simple to read, like you're reading your email. It automatically downloads new updates into this reader too!

2. User Contribution

An Ode to My First Love from Char Loro on Vimeo.

For example: VIMEO! YOUTUBE! (I personally am more of a fan of Vimeo because it's more of the forum for video artists/film makers. I feel that Youtube is more on-the-go, here's my little digi cam video! Vimeo is HD, baby. HD.)

People can contribute videos, share, comment, re-post, and respond! It's a great forum to be inspired by like minded video artists trying to promote themselves and share their art. I love it.

3. Social Media


I have been on millions of different platforms in terms of Social Media. APT107.com, tambayanonline.net, asianavenue.com, xanga.com, facebook, blackplanet.com, friendster, hi5, myspace... you name it, I had it! I told you, I was born in that generation. Geocities, black starry backgrounds, neon fonts and scrolly mouse graphics! It was all a battle for who had the best layout. A competition for esthetic. Think of it as the early 2000's version of the sneaker culture... it was about sick kicks then, and it was about best web pages in the 2000's. This is what took up a majority of my time when I was younger... Lol.

4. Online Applications

GOOGLE DOCS. It's basically like your Applications folder on your laptop, but all of these can run online! I remember I didn't have Word on my laptop for the longest time, and had to email to my gmail so that I could open and work on these files. Thank the lord for Google Docs! Now Google has released Google Wave! It combines all these applications onto one platform, (combines with dynamic content) and allows you to work on word docs, videos, etc, with a forum of people! I just got the invite... Can't wait to try it out!

5. Harnessing Collective Intelligence


Tagging, tagging, tagging! And I'm not talking about graffiti. The tagging culture in terms of harnessing collective intelligence is an automatic way for the web to organize content. When you tag subjects, part of the name, etc, it makes it easier to search up on search engines such as google and yahoo. Doing this is a great and easy way to share information over the web. So don't forget to tag your videos, tag your pictures!

Flash Project C'est Complet!

Here are a few still shots of my Flash Project.

Flash is definitely a program I want to familiarize myself with more. I learned about key framing... which is something I realize is used a lot in other types of programs, like After Effects. I also think back to how each frame used to have to be manually drawn or made... and how 'tweening' has made my life that much more easier. Lol.

The in-class critique was pretty crazy too. I got to see the talent in my class and what my generation is capable of creating. I really enjoyed one of the last projects where one student used masking and made that television animation with different themed channels. It was brilliant! It inspired me for more ways I can use Flash other than just making a title sequence or a kinetic font video. Flash can combine so many elements, like video, animation, text, pictures, to create a really cool product.

I'll leave you now with this:

Artist Statement

The concept for my flash project is a title sequence introducing a mock television show about my roommates and I. We call ourselves the Granby Girls. I wanted to do something of a very handwritten and hand drawn esthetic. Considering my lack of drawing skills, I took photos that I had previously photographed of us, and opened them up into Photoshop. I made raw cut outs and posterized the images to give them more of a cartoon-hand drawn feel. I played around with their movement using classic tweens. I also free hand wrote out all the text featured in the project. My project is very Juno inspired. The use of the loose-leaf lined paper as a background adds to the overall look as well.

My target audience would definitely be my demographic, that being high school and college students. The imagery and text reveal that this show is young, hip, and fun. It really reflects who the characters are, and what can be expected to be seen on the show.

Some of the challenges I faced were trying to time the music with the movement of the words. I’m used to using editing programs in which you can hear the music on the timeline, making it simpler to match up movements. This wasn’t the case for flash, and I found it really time consuming and frustrating. I decided to use a different song instead that had more flexibility in terms of matching up with movement. I had to bring the chosen song into Garage Band in order to shorten the length. Other struggles I had was with the text. I originally had used preset fonts for text in the project, but I didn’t like the end result. The text didn’t look as authentic as having it all handwritten.

I’m a big fan of what I’ve produced. I do have plans to create a web series based on the lives of my roommates and I would like to expand upon what I’ve created to make a longer title sequence for it. If not for my web series, then definitely use the same esthetic for something else. I really like the end result; it looks really clean and simple.

Augmented Reality Games

Um, WHY did I not know about this before? ARG's sound like the coolest adult real life video game I've ever heard of in my life. In lecture this week we talked about the ARG that they did for the Dark Knight.... Wow. I am definitely down for the usual scavenger hunt, heck, even an Amazing Race... but this is just way beyond that.


What happened was the creators of the Dark Knight ARG made it looks like the Joker had hacked into everything! Took over websites, playing tricks on people, leaving cell phone numbers in baked cakes and having the cell phone baked into the cake, having the participants in the game follow the clues to solve the mystery...

To make a long story short: ARG's as defined by Wikipedia: An alternate reality game (ARG), is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.

Here's another example of an ARG that took place a few years back:
http://www.thelostexperience.com/

This one promoted the coming of season three for Lost.
What all these ARG's have in common is that they are an innovative, fun and interactive way to not just market and advertise, let's say, an upcoming film or video game, but it incorporates different forms of digital media and technology. They use websites, cell phones, video cameras, etc...

I want to take this idea and make an ARG of some sort in the near or far future... Hmmm...

Alex Steinweiss

Also known as the man who invented the album cover. He definitely took another aspect of music and made it marketable... and not in a bad way either. If anything, I truly believe music provokes visuals. That's just the type of humans most of us are. We listen to something that is gracing our ears wonderfully, and we can't help but close our eyes and imagine some sort of visual accompaniment. The development and evolution of the album cover is what helps listeners and fans gain a greater perspective into what kind of people or person this is that is producing this music.

Here are a few album covers of Alex Steinweiss':



And here are a few album covers of some recent bands that are out today:

and Radio Head

You can definitely see a lot of Alex's influence. The big chunky and random shapes, like the triangles used in the Keane album. The typography that is used is very simple sans fonts, some look hand written... What I like about these album themes is that it uses very primary and basic colors, and it doesn't look like it really has a color scheme that it follows. It's still very eye catching and appealing.

What shall I do, What shall I do?

I loved the animation on title sequences that Laurie showed us last week. The ones from Saul Bass were pretty inspiring and I'd love to be able to make something of his style. I actually do videos -- some are just montages of my friends and I, many of them are from trips that I've taken, but most recently, my room mates and I have been discussing doing some online web series that is a reality TV show take on our lives together. We can ourselves the Granby Girls. I think it would be amazing if I could create an opening title sequence using picture cutouts of us and quotes in animated text following along to the clips of our voices. I've always liked Cabbie On The Street's little opening bumper: