People to People – Ideas

   When I thought about interesting people to document in my project, my mind went awol! I had to think back to my home up north and identify potential stories. Two really hit the spot.

   One, a man called David Wade, an art teacher and head of sixth form, is very interesting. Working backwards – he is now the head of a sixth form and fully operates them effectively (also encouraging interests, travelling and extra-ciriculum activities); is an art teacher of tremendous ability; has worked for the police force; studied fine art and graphic design at university; ran away from home in India to go to university and get a better life; was born to a colonist family and moved to India at a very early age; struggled at academics at school (due to dyslexia discovered at university) but found a passion for art and was good at long distance running.
   As well as footage of David, I would also incorporate photographs he has that document his life and also footage of maps.

   The second person I thought about is a woman who I shall refer to as Claire. A sufferer of manic depression since her childhood and the unexpected life change of having a child while she was 17 and 18, led her to experimenting with drugs during her late teens – particularly heroin. As she moved into her twenties, Claire was an addict.  Her life was hard, consisting of abusive partners, addiction sickness and low income. Due to the state she was in, the drugs helped her escape the life she hated; a life she hated because of the drugs. Addicts will do anything for their needs and Claire ended up working at a brothel; the only way she could fund her addiction. But there was a light at the end of her tunnel. She had had two children. And they needed a mum. They were looked after but it spurred Claire to get clean. In 1998, Claire woke one morning knowing she was going to die but how could she do that with so much to live for.

Everyone knows addictions are hard to kick…heroin is probably the worse. Their are stories of addicts committing disgusting acts (such as with animals) to not suffer the pain and illness getting clean. But Claire went cold turkey by herself and got off the smack.

She then met a man who I will refer to as William. She was madly in love with him and he her. It seemed like life was perfect. Then life took another hurtful turn toward Claire. In 2005, William had a completely unexpected heart attack. Claire could not physically and mentally cope with his death and turned to another drug, amphetamine, to escape. She was addicted to this drug for four years, eventually admitting herself to Lynfield Mount Hospital (a mental health hospital in Bradford) for sixth months to get herself off the amphetamine. With (now three) children to be a mum for, with the help of Lynfield Mount and with a will stronger than stone, Claire got clean in 2009, vowing never to abuse drugs again.

  Although Claire got off the drugs, they still affected her health. She suffers from Psychosis and epilepsy as a (common) side effect to phet; she suffers Raynards disease from the smack. Claire also has Hepatitis C. This is not a result of being a dirty addict (a clean addict uses clean needles/doesnt share paraphernalia/safe sex etc) but from an old partner as he attempted a home made tatoo on her – it’s worth noting he only pricked her twice and not even deep into her skin. Claire’s story is full of love; her story is not just “I was an addict, now I am clean” it’s actually “Look what drugs did to me”.

I am going to go with Claire for the documentary project. She is up for it as long as her identity is not revealed, I dont post the video on the internet (facebook, youtube, vimeo etc) and in the future, I make a fuller document to bring awareness of post-addiction diseases and conditions. The one problem is that Claire lives in my hometown Bradford so filming may be an issue.

Branding

Professionals, businesses and companies all have brand logos, names etc. Since we are aiming to be these people, we need a brand. An icon, idea or image that identifies us. Something that really shouts ME!

First, we needed a tag-line or slogan. Something intuitive and original. I wanted to say something about myself. I strive to look beyond the norm and see things beyond what others see. For example when I watch a film, I don’t just passively view it. I engage, think about the story, plot, and characters and so on. I also wonder how and why things were done or made. A notable character, infamous in literature, is Sherlock Holmes. The way he thinks and acts is really a fictionist version of myself. He sees beyond the natural appearance of something. He imagines scenarios in his head. A quote of his I came across is “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear”. This says exactly how I want people to know how I think.

I fancied the text to be in a typewriter font; and for the two simple sentences to be defined from each other. I formatted the text like this:

 

 Fight Club is a film where the audience never notices the teasers as to the true nature of the film, nor are they meant to. This represents The Narrators perspective of his situation. A scene in this film I particularly find interesting is where Tyler points out the cigarette burns on films (he explains why in the film). I have spotted these in the cinema before but nothing really clicked in my mind – was is there? What did it mean? Was I imagining it? I also like the way the characters break the fourth wall in this scene, speaking out to the audience and drawing them in so they feel more personal with the film.

 

Putting this image with the text would be my logo. I first inverted the text so it stood out on the dark background:

 

 I then de-saturated the picture and made it black and white as I felt the colour lost some of the denoted meaning. I then highly contrasted the black and white colours. I felt this really broke up the smoothness of the image and made the different objects in the picture really predominant. It also made it, in my opinion, a bit comic book like and I loved the effect it created.

Last was to add the text to the picture. I wanted it places subtly in the whole image so I put it in the bland bottom-right corner. I then faded it so it wasn’t as obvious and amorphous to the canvas.

This is my finished logo:

Prezi

   When I saw the lecture dealing with Prezi, I can say I was thoroughly impressed. Having taught younger people in the Air Training Corps, I have relied on presentation software, techniques and charisma to carry forward what I am saying, keep this interesting and teach them something. I can also say that I know about presentation giving to the most difficult audience. Teenagers don’t want to come home from a day ‘learning’ at school and be lectured even more. I’ve had to develop my style to be exciting, encouraging and entertaining at the same time as teaching them something. But I am nothing without materials. I confess I can pull a lecture out of the blue on the spot and improvise with whatever I have around me. However, with preparation and a little time I can pull together a cracking presentation. Prezi is a new means of doing this in an innovative, exciting way.

   Just to test the water and get to grips with Prezi, I decided to make it based on my cabinet of curiosities. It is filled with resources and enough media to really explore the Power of Prezi.

( I created a Prezi but have re-edited it, see below)

   However, I want to experiment a bit more with Prezi, using more complex tools and different approaches to presenting.

My Prezi!

I decided to use my Cabinet of Curiosities to experiment with Prezi. I was repackaging an existing piece of media I had produced and creating a narrative out of it. Also, Prezi is a more interesting presentation format as opposed to Powerpoint (its original format).

I realised my C of C was humongous, with lots of content in it. I decided to only do about half of it (although passionate about them, I did not include my travelling and my movie obsession).

I literally imported all my images I had used for my C of C into Prezi step by step. I also tried to include videos but these seemed not to work. I may try importing them in the future as I feel my own videos would add a nice touch to what I am trying to present. I could upload them to a YouTube account and embed them but for the time being I am happy with the content.

I then grouped my interests into different groups to isolate my interests. These were then sub-divided (as in the television section). Some areas got framed, some areas just had the images stylistically placed around them. I then learnt how to create paths and sequences which I found quite innovative however, on reflection I think I went overboard with these and made them too complicated; they also spin around a lot which I feel gives a sense of motion sickness to the viewer.

I tried to publish my Prezi once it had been completed though I found it not to work. The system did keep crashing online and maybe it was just an error. I will try it again in the future.

My Cabinet of Curiosities as a Prezi:  http://prezi.com/zyad2vyg-p3z/my-cabinet-of-curiosities/ 

My Poetic Eyes