Culture Shock: Project Plan

In this post I would like to present you my project plan. Every week I will implement his next points and present them in project posts.

Culture Shock Project Plan

Creating website: Portfolio Home Page

Today I started creating a portfolio website using WIX. To start, I chose one of the templates from Wix and started customizing it.

The next step was to change my name, so I selected it and then, on the pop-up dialogue box, I chose the font Noticia Text, increased the size to 35 pts, bolded it, and adjusted the settings using the transform controls.

I then changed my navigation bar to the same font, Noticia Text 22 pts and bold.  I then removed any unnecessary pages, leaving only Home, About, Contact and Portfolio. Furthermore, I removed the login box I removed the login box to protect my website against unauthorized access.

I subsequently modified the copyright sign with my name and the accurate date, and I adjusted the font to match the page's font and I changed the text size to 15. Every page should contain a copyright notice located in the footer.

I used a free photo from the WIX library to complete the background image change. Then I changed the Image opacity to 50% in the Image Settings tab and then clicked on the preview button to see the site's layout after it had been created.

I then used the save button located in the upper right-hand corner to save all of my changes.

www.wix.com

Additionally, I checked my homepage on a mobile device and made a few small changes to remove any white space. The page looks much better now.

www.wix.com

www.wix.com

Initial Research: Morgan Spurlock

 

Considering my final project this term will be a short film, I am going to do initial research on production techniques. That's why I decided to take a closer look at the film 'Super Size Me' created by Morgan Spurlock. 

The documentary presents the effect of an experiment that Spurlock conducted on himself. 'The filmmaker was a healthy 32-year-old when he embarked on the challenge on 1 February 2003, but over the course of the next 30 days he deteriorated rapidly, as he consumed 5,000 calories a day - twice as many as recommended as part of a balanced diet.'(Massey, 2023).

Super Size Me By Morgan Spurlock

The author demonstrated exceptional professionalism and a competent journalistic technique while creating the document. 'In between meals, Spurlock drives across the country and interviews a host of health and nutrition experts, lawyers, school workers, and a surprisingly trim man who has eaten over 19,000 Big Macs yet maintains a healthy cholesterol level.'(watchdocumentaries.com, 2004). Spurlock uses three rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos, and pathos) to persuade his audience to agree with his main point. 'In the documentary Supersize Me, Spurlock uses pathos to appeal to the audience's emotions. One example is when Spurlock was vomiting right after eating "Supersized" fries and drinking (coke) right outside his car. Another example is when Spurlock called his mom to tell her that his liver is being destroyed by the McDonald's food.'(Anthony, 2014)

Moreover, he used logos to authenticate his theses. 'Logos was very key in this documentary to persuade the audience by giving factual, scientific detail. Through logos the results were seen in numbers and able to be put down in the form of data and statistics.'(Harding, 2014)

 In the book 'Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America' , from 2005, Spurlock goes much further; he undertakes an unequal fight against food production giants and fast food chains and exposes the marketing mechanisms of the largest corporations. It opposes the common manipulation used by manufacturers, trying to make consumers aware of the risks of consuming widely available and constantly advertised snacks, sweets, carbonated drinks and fast food.

DON'T EAT THIS BOOK By Morgan Spurlock

In my film, I am going to use one of the rhetorical appeals - pathos - in order to influence the audience. Furthermore, I will show interviews with DMU students, who are my 'experts' on culture shock. I hope that in this way I will be able to establish contact with the audience and get them interested in my movie.

References

Massey, J. (2023). Guy who ate McDonald’s three meals a day for a month suffered horrific consequences. [online] LADbible. Available at: https://www.ladbible.com/community/mcdonalds-three-meals-super-size-me-080560-20230127/ [Accessed 26 Oct. 2023].

watchdocumentaries.com. (2004). Super Size Me (2004) | WatchDocumentaries.com. [online] Available at: https://watchdocumentaries.com/super-size-me/ [Accessed 26 Oct. 2023].

Anthony, H. (2014). Pathos. [online] supersize me. Available at: https://supersizedargument.weebly.com/pathos.html [Accessed 29 Oct. 2023].

Harding, A. (2014). Logos. [online] supersize me. Available at: https://supersizedargument.weebly.com/logos.html [Accessed 29 Oct. 2023].

Project Sign Off: Culture Shock

I have signed off on my project 'Culture Shock' after carefully considering my ideas. My short 3-minute film will feature three interviews with DMU students, which I will record myself in the studio. In my film, I will also try to bring up the most important issues related to cultural shock.

College culture shock: the good, the bad, and the ugly By Jazmin Chavira

Please see below for my Project Sign Off. I'll be working on this all over the term, and my project plan will be posted in the next post.

• Project Sign Off Post - complete
• Initial Research post - complete
• Project Plan - we will do this in class- complete
• At least three research posts on other film editors/directors- complete
• A post on your target market - complete
• at least three process posts (should include your stock footage clips and edits, technical details of the edits and if your are shooting - your shoots and reshoots - complete
• Technical research post on software you will use - complete
• Post on creating your portfolio gallery- completed website portfolio,  introduction and added the portfolio
• Finalising your portfolio and adding to your website- complete

Major Project: SMART Objective

In this post, I'd like to introduce a SMART Objective for my project that I created after considering my initial ideas and planned research. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

What is a culture shock? by intercultural Coaching and Training

As part of my studies this semester, I intend to create a short 3-minute film about the culture shock and academic culture shock that DMU students experienced after moving to the UK. My film will consist of three interviews with DMU students of different nationalities and genders, so I will be able to present different points of view. I'm going to use a Nikon D3500 camera and a Google Pixel 6a phone to shoot the original photos. I will edit the obtained footage using Premier Pro. Additionally, I plan to use stock still footage, copyright-free music, subtitles, and a voiceover. I'm going to finish my project by the end of November.

Milanote: Media Production Project

I would like to present to you my Milanote board, which I used to present my research for my Media Production Project.

Milanote: Media Production Project

To view the full-size Milanote, please click the link above.

Final Project: Initial Ideas

In my final project, I would like to make a short 3-minute long film, which is related to my future studies. 

I have a few concepts that I need to think about and choose the best one. The best idea seems to me to be to create a  film about the culture shock of students after coming to the UK. Another concept is to make a video about the most interesting places in Leicester. However, a film related to students' lives seems to be a better choice because I can discuss important topics that also concern me.

6 Biggest Culture Shocks for International Students in the UK

After doing some research, I came up with the idea that my film could take the form of an interview. I would like to film several students from different countries and continents talking about culture shock like YouTube creator INTO Study in the video 'Studying abroad: culture shock'. They could talk about their experiences and share their thoughts. 

Studying abroad: culture shock By INTO Study

I think it would be a good idea to record my film in one of the DMU buildings for example in the Kimberlin Library. This should improve the sound and recording quality and prevent viewers from being distracted by a dynamic background like in the video above. To shoot the video, I can use some tips on setting up equipment, lighting and audio from the video 'How to Shoot an Interview'.

Its creator, Full Time Filmmaker, is a well-known YouTuber with millions of subscribers who has an easy way of explaining everything.

How to Shoot an Interview By Full Time Filmmaker

I really liked the idea of ​​creating an interview that raises issues that concern most of DMU's international students.  It might be difficult to handle the technical aspects of recording and processing the film, but I think I can handle it, because I have  the basic equipment necessary to make the recordings and a bit of experience in recording. 

I will try to consider all my ideas again and if I come up with something interesting, I will add it to my project.

References:

Our Reporter. 2023. 6 Biggest Culture Shocks for International Students in the UK - Tribune Online. [ONLINE] Available at: https://tribuneonlineng.com/6-biggest-culture-shocks-for-international-students-in-the-uk/. [Accessed 16 October 2023].

The Final Advert

And here is my final advert!

Reflection

My Final Advert looks better than the previous one I did during classes. Unfortunately, I am unable to do everything exactly as I would like due to the fact that I have not yet fully mastered Adobe Express. I'm not completely satisfied with my logo, which became a little blurry after being added to the photo. Moreover, my slogan could be more original. I'll work on eliminating these shortcomings in my future projects.

Creating the Advert

After the plan and digital assets were complete, it was time to make my final advertisement. I decided to create it in Adobe Express because of the experience I gained during the classes.  

The first step was to log in to Adobe Express to create a Logo of my company.

I found the image of the camera that I wanted to use to create a logo in the Elements tab. 

I then used Text tab to add the company name 'SIBI PRODUCTION' and tagline 'Become a Media Producer' to the logo.

After creating the logo, it was time to move on to the rest of the advertising. I decided to use Flyer in Adobe Express.

Then I dragged the cameraman's image from the Media tab and changed its size so that it would fit the A4 format.

Last but not least, I added my logo, changed its size with the transform tools, and added my tagline with the Text tab.

Finally my advert is done! I will present it in the next post.

Practice Ad Creation

During today's Digital Art class, I decided to create an advertisement for the NoodleHouse pasta company. I created my advertise using Adobe Express.

My first step was signing up for the free software Adobe Express, where i can create the logo of my company and of course the rest of my advertise.

To sign up in Adobe Express I used my DMU Google account.  Of course, I can only use the basic features on my free account, but those are still more than enough to operate the programme effectively. As soon as I logged in, I selected the Create Logo button.

I looked for pictures of noodles that would best represent the brand NoodleHouse using the Elements tab. The next step was to use the Text tab to add my restaurant's name to the logo.

After that, I added the slogan 'Just Eat It!' to the bottom, and my new logo was nearly complete. The last step in creating the logo was to remove the background from the photo to make it transparent.

When the logo was complete, it was time to create an advertise for my business, NoodleHouse. I chose the Flyer template in Adobe Express because it was in the A4 format that I needed.

After opening Flyer, I went to the Media tab and searched for “Noodles”.  I selected the photo I liked the most, dragged it, and adjusted its size until it looked perfect.

Then I added and set the previously created logo. The last step was to select the Text tab and add my tagline: 'You have to try Before you die!'.

The final image was then downloaded from Adobe Express and uploaded as an A4 document, which you can see below.

Reflection

I had a lot of fun creating this advertisement and learned a lot of useful skills that I will apply to future projects. Although I am happy with my work, there are some elements that need improvement, particularly the unclear logo. If I were rewriting this, I would also change the tagline.

  

Advert Ideas and Plan

In today's post I'd like to present you my idea for creating an advertisement and how I planned to make it. The first step was to find an idea. Since I'm going to study Media Production in the future, I thought it might be a good idea to advertise a Media Production course. I started by watching other adverts because I wanted to see what others were creating.

Advanced Diploma Visual Media Production Courses

Using the search engine, I found some interesting course advertisements. Practically every one of them contained the same features that I plan to use in my advert, however I'd like to add something new.

Professional cameraman By Rommel Gonzalez

The most characteristic feature of each advertisement is the presence of a camera on the poster. This is the first thing that is associated with media production.  

Tv camera in a concert hall stock photo By Andriy Sinenkiy

Most of the ads also contain images of people who obviously enjoy creating the content. I think this is a good idea that I could use in my work as well.

That's why I decided to create an advert that would draw inspiration from other ads, for example the image of a camera and happy people enjoying their passion. I think I will also add a simple tagline like: 'Become a Media Producer', a logo I created and a catchy slogan.

Image References:

Thrissur, A., (2023) Advanced Diploma Visual Media Production Courses. [ONLINE].  Available at:https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/advanced-diploma-visual-media-production-courses-21526147288.html [Accessed 9 October 2023]

Gonzalez, R., (2021) Professional cameraman. [ONLINE]. Available at: https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1300532725/photo/professional-cameraman-covering-on-event-with-a-video-cameraman-silhouette-on-live-studio.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=is&k=20&c=IFGDwGjjxLDwA03PKtYligbe2k4hciQw6GLhQIUlrsA= [Accessed 9 October 2023].

Sinenkiy, A., (2018) Tv camera in a concert hall stock photo. [ONLINE]. Available at: https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1016201648/photo/tv-camera-in-a-concert-hall.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=is&k=20&c=h8JBqFIw4SVB25gmivDR7zXVAL8kCVBQ6I8HHhBz0mA= [Accessed 10 October 2023].

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Sequential Images: Individual Work

My last task in the first week was to create my own sequential image. The last year was hard for me and at times I had moments of doubt. This is the reason why I decided to create a project that would remind me that I should always look into the future with hope.

To create my Sequential Images I needed a camera, a model and of course a background for my photos. I used Google Pixar 6a phone to take the pictures and as a scenery I chose the stairs next to the Vijay Patel Building. I took 67 photos of my model Miss A. in two different places, various angles and poses, and then used them to make a contact sheet. 

The last step was to create a final sequence which I called 'Never Give Up!'. I decided to use photos taken in the second location with the Vijay Patel Building in the background

To make my image sequence I used Pixlr E, where I created a white canvas in A4 format which I rotated to landscape orientation. Then I pasted six chosen photos, who I made in second locand arranged them on the canvas, adjusting their sizes with the transform controls, and arranging them according to the gridline.

As a final step, I changed the font to Trebuchet MS and added the text using the text tool.

Reflection

I wanted to demonstrate in my project that we must never give up and must always move forward, even when fate is not on our side. The staircase in pictures best describes how difficult and dangerous life can be. Like the main character of my sequential image, we always must get back up after falling.

Sequential Images Initial Research

Sequentally Yours (Marilyn Monroe) by Elliott Erwitt, 1954

Elliott Erwitt was a famous French- American advertising and documentary photographer, born in 1928. He started his adventure with photography by working in the darkroom and then continued it at Los Angeles City College. His next step was to study film at the New School for Social Research in New York. During his long career, he became famous for his black and white photographs presenting ironic and absurd situations.

                                      Elliott Erwitt, Seqentally Yours (Marilyn Monroe), 1954

The above photograph sequence is, in my opinion, one of the most famous image sequences in history. In the Photos we can see the famous actress Marilyn Monroe in a beautiful white dress, blown up by a sudden gust of wind. The pictures taken in 1954 have gone down forever in the history of pop culture and Marilyn Monroe was remembered as a sex icon. This shows us how significant the role of photography can be. As a fan of classic black and white photography, I hope to create images similar to those of Elliott Erwitt, who created many iconic photographs.

References:

Magnum Photos. 2023. Elliott Erwitt. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/elliott-erwitt/. [Accessed 8 October 2023].

Elliott Erwitt. 2023. Elliott Erwitt. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.elliotterwitt.com/galleries. [Accessed 8 October 2023].

Sequential Images

In this post I would like to present you my first project Sequence Images  that I created with my partner in class. To create the project, we used a Google Pixel 6a phone and a wall as a background. Then, using the online contact sheet generator, I created a set of my original images. Unfortunately, my photos rotate when added to the generator and I can't fix it, however I will try to eliminate this defect in the future.

My next step in creating this project was to edit the photos using Pixlr E Editor. I chose a template in which I added selected photos in a clockwise order. Finally, I saved my new image to my desktop as a PNG. Below you can see the effects of my work.

Clock By Damian Sibielak

This task was very interesting and gave me a lot of joy, which you can see in the photos. Some aspects still need improvement, however thanks to this work I gained a lot of useful skills, that I can use in other projects in the future.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. My name is Damian, I'm a DMUIC student and I will use this blog to show the progress of my Digital Art learning.  I love photography and everything related to it. That's why I decided to study Media Production because I would like to improve my skills and get new ones, including video creation, photo and video editing. 

 My favorite part of photography is landscapes, and I am inspired by the amazing photographs taken by Daniel Kordan, famous Russian photographer, winner of many awards. He has millions of fans all over the world as a result of his remarkable works. Daniel draws his inspiration from beauty of nature, which he is able to capture in a unique way.

Mount Fuji, by Daniel Kordan.

Another artist whose works are a source of inspiration for me is the American photographer of the young generation Michael Shainblum. He is not only a cameraman, but also a filmmaker and educator who shares his knowledge in video tutorials, workshops and YouTube Channel. What I like most about his work is the masterful use of long exposure, wich gives his photos an almost magical look.

San Francisco Seascape: “Kindred” by Michael Shainblum

 I hope you will enjoy watching my progress in Digital Arts.

Reference: 

Daniel Kordan.com. 2023. Daniel Kordan Workshops [ONLINE] Available at: https://danielkordan.com/about/. [Accessed 8 October 2023].

Michael Shainblum. 2018. Michael Shainblum. [ONLINE] Available at: https://shainblumphoto.com/. [Accessed 8 October 2023].

Image references:

Kordan, D., (2018) Mount Fuji. [ONLINE]. Available at: https://danielkordan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DSC_0743%D0%BE%D0%BE-1030x687.jpg [Accessed 4 October 2023].

Shainblum, M., (2018) San Francisco Seascape: “Kindred”. [ONLINE]. Available at: https://shainblumphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/california_seascape_landscape_photography_34.jpg [Accessed 8 October 2023].