Fmp Evaluation
For this project I had to have a topic to base the project on that ran with the theme of Old story New beginning, So I wrote down all the things that I could think of to do with the theme of the
project. I could not decide what to do as I had quite a few ideas. Therefore once our whole class sat
down and discussed all there project ideas I told the class a few of my ideas and it turned out that all
of my ideas where relativity the same accruing thing of developments. Therefore I decided to run
with the development topic and bundled all my ideas to create one big fmp project. Therefore for
my Final Major Project I decided to look back and create a college of my life and a moving image to
show all the different developments that have happened throughout the years such as the
developments of architecture, fashion, music, etc… The reason I wanted to base my project on this
topic was because I wanted to get a better and general understanding of why everything has
changed and why everything will change through the years, why everything cannot stay the same.
For this project we had to create our own individual briefs in my brief I stated that I will be looking in
to how thing develop. Such as invention (technology) and ourselves as people. I will look into my
own personal developments as well as looking at technology and building. To document my work I
used Wordpress to blog about the project. I also wrote down what I had done each day in a
notebook. I did this so I knew what I had done and I could look back on it and see my own progress.
Another way I documented my work was in a sketchbook I had two small eco-friendly sketchbooks
witch I worked in throughout this project.
Firstly, I began with doing my secondary research. Finding out about the developments of music,
how the sound has changed compared to 1920’s to what we are all used to listening to now. Even
the way we listen to music has changed/developed a lot over time. I also learned about the how
fashion has changed but at the same time I have found out that no matter how differently we dress
now compared to previous years with each era bit of fashion were taken from the last and just
improved slightly therefore fashion merely updates more than develops. After researching and
learning about each development I decided to do my Primary research. For my primary research I
went to different locations and took some photographs as old architecture and new. The locations I
went to where Liverpool, Town and also Port Sunlight. While in port sunlight I took some
photographs of old houses I found the style of how houses are built have somewhat drastically
changed as the houses from previous years seem bigger and more extravagant and the texture of
how we build houses has changed also as in the 70/80’s most of the houses where pebble dashed on
the outside this was seen as the ‘new big thing’ back then and everybody wanted one. Whereas now
a days you see very few and now the houses are mostly built just by plan red brick. This has
developed over the years as architectures find out what is better to build a house with, what is more
structurally safe to use.
After completing my research I decided to ask some of my family members for photographs of my
childhood. Once I had some photographs I scanned them into the computer and decided to edit
each photograph. Some where lightly edited and some where heavily edited. When editing my
photographs I used a program called Pixlr. I used this program because I feel most comfortable using
this particular program. I also used Photoshop to edit some of my other pictures. When editing my
photographs I played around with the editing and tried a few different techniques on a few of them.
I messed around with colour splashing on some of the photographs, I found that it worked better on
some of the photographs then others. To edit a few others I used filters I used an orange on some,
yellow and/or pink filters on others. I used these because I thought they looked good and gave the
picture a warm feel which was the look I wanted to create for most of the photographs. For the
other photographs I wanted to create an old look to achieve this I created my own overlay, to create
my own overly I scanned some brown parcel paper into the computer. Then opened this on
Photoshop and placed the picture of the parcel paper over the photograph that I was editing and
using the opacity tool I lowered the opacity of the parcel paper to create the ‘old’ feel to the
photograph. I found that this work very well. I found that editing all of my photographs was
somewhat challenging as I had a lot of photographs to edit and a lot of photographs to decided how
I was going to edit them and what feel I wanted to give of in the picture. I did not just edit
photographs of my childhood I also edited photographs of old and new architecture that I took in
and around the local areas of Liverpool.
Once all my pictures where edited I printed the photographs off in black and white and created
college mock ups. I did this to see what order the photographs looked best in. After this I then
thought about the sizes that my photographs were going to be. When it came to resizing the
photographs I liked the idea of my photographs being all different sizes as I was creating a college
and I thought that would work best. I decided to measure in inches rather than centimetres because
I am more comfortable working in inches. Once this was done I measured the exhibition board that
the photographs were going to be on for the final exhibition. Then laid out all of my photographs on
to the board to see how it looked. Before doing this I did sketch up a layout plan in my sketchbook to
which I followed to get a general idea of how my presentation would look in real life. I thought that
the layout of the exhibition board was lacking something but I couldn’t put my finger on it so I ask
for opinions and this helped me to then identify the problem. This led me going back into Photoshop
and editing the photographs further adding text to the pictures. When proceeding to edit my
photographs further using Photoshop I used the text tool to add text and a couple of the pictures to
advertise what was either going on in the photograph and the relations to what the people where to
me in the photograph. I thought this added a little something to this photograph as my pictures
where missing something.
When designing the layout for my exhibition board I sketched out a couple of ideas in my
sketchbook firstly. Then once I had created all of the mock up colleges. I then tried it out on
the exhibition board to see what it would look like. I had a few problems with this as it
looked better on paper as to what it looked like to real life. I thought that it all looked very
messy and clustered together. I needed to fix this, so I began by going back to the
sketchbook a sketching up some more ideas I changed even the tiniest of things to see if it
would look any better. I kept going back to the board and putting on my pictures in the
different orders and layouts that I had sketched out. I then asked for an opinion and it gave
me the idea the layout wasn’t wrong the level of witch the pictures are was. This meant that
I had to spray mount my pictures and put them on mount board. Originally with this idea I
thought that I would old mount a few of the pictures but instead I ended up with all of my
pictures being put on mount board witch in the end was the better option and I am glad I
done this. Mounting the pictures was a brilliant idea and it gave the layout and the
exhibition board a bit more to look at. It makes it look better and stand out that little bit
more. Seeing my final edits all cut out to their different sizes and stuck to mount board
more me feel like my layout was all coming to plan and it made me release that it does
work. I thought it looks better that way and the pictures in colour rather than black and
white really made a big difference. This made me look forward to the actual exhibition.
Looking at the final layout I noticed that my project was more photography based therefore I
decided that on my exhibition layout I would have an A3 image that was more graphic based then
photography. From this I then got the idea to create a sellotype transfer. This is created my printing
out a picture in this case one that I had taken and once it is printed carefully overlay strips of
sellotype across the front of the image making sure that there are no air bubble with in the type.
Once this is complete then simply place the image into a tray of water and carefully take the back of
the picture of in the water to create a sellotype transfer. After this I then printed out the original
photograph and took it up the light box and using a pencil and a plan piece of A4 paper I began to
sketch the original photograph. Once this was complete I then cut out part of the sellotype transfer
and added it in to the sketch I had done to create a sort of ‘’Rotoscope’’ feel to the image. After this
using water colour paints I then painted parts of the image to lighten the image up. I though the end
result was good and I enjoyed creating it.
Before starting my moving image I create a few story boards. I created story boards because I
needed to plan out what I was going to create before I actually created it. My moving image takes
you though some developments that have happened over the years. It also explains why we need
change in the world and what I have learned When it came to creating my moving image I had a lot
of difficulties with this. At first I tried to use a program called Power Director. I have used this
program before to create moving images and other videos however when it came to using it to
create my moving image for this project the program kept acting up a lot for example it would freeze
a lot and then when it unfroze no matter if I had saved my work or not it would delete everything
and I would have to start all over again. This was a shame as I really enjoyed using this program
because I think it is a really good program to use and I feel completely combatable using it and I
know how to use it plus I could do everything that I wanted to do using this program. However After
the 8th try in using this program I gave up an tried to use other programs such as Movie Maker I
found this program confusing to use therefore I continued to look around I went through a lot trying
to see if I could get around to using other programs but I couldn’t quit grasp the hang of any others
so trying twice more on the first program I asked my sister if she knew any good programs to use to
create a moving image. She could only name one program and it is an old program. However I had a
look at it and played around to see if I could use it. I could therefore I thought it was better than
nothing and went back to basics really and created my moving image using that program. That
program is called Windows Movie Maker. Although I couldn’t achieve everything I wanted to do
with my moving image using this I still create a somewhat good moving image/ slideshow. One
trouble I had with this is that I could not use any text tools on the actual program and I need to write
a lot of information down so instead I decided to get my Large yellow sticky notes and write down
everything that I wanted to say and take a picture of each sticky note against a black piece of paper.
This worked out well and it sort of made the video that little bit better as it added a certain ‘spark’ to
the video. Another problem I had with this video was that when I had finished creating it, I tried to
upload it on to Vimeo however the moving image that I created would not upload as it was a
MSWMM file this meant that my video would only open and play in that program that I used to
create it. So to fix this problem I put my video on to a USB and uploaded it on to a mac computer. I
then changed the type of file it was so that I could upload it on to Vimeo.
Deciding what music to use as the background for my moving image was a hard decision. At first I
decided I wanted to create my own music for the video. I wanted to somehow mix old music in with
music from today. I tried to do this by myself but found it rather difficult. I have a friend who is a
music producer and so I asked him for advice with what I was trying to do he said it would be too
hard to make a good mix as both the song beat did not join up. After discovering this I done a lot of
research looking into how I could somehow achieve this I tried to use a program called Music Maker.
I found this program hard to use therefore I went on to YouTube and looked for Instrumental
versions of songs. After listening to a lot of instrumentals of different songs I decided to go with the
Instrumental vision of Nirvana’s – About a girl. I think this work well with my video, although I did
think it got a bit repetitive though out the moving image.
My final exhibition looked better than I expected I loved that all my pictures where put on mount
board. It made my presentation look a lot better. I stuck my pictures up with extra strong glue dots
and once they ran out I used Velcro strips. Surprisingly I had no problems of difficulties with this. I
thought I would have a few but everything stuck on and stayed on. If I were to change anything
about my final exhibition I would paint something on to the stand to make it look more visual and
not as pain. Otherwise I thought my exhibition looked good. At first I was unsure I thought it might
have look very cluttered but it didn’t and I like the look of my final exhibition. I am happy with the
materials I used for this project because they worked and went well with my project. If I were to
make an adjustment with this it would be to add more work to my final exhibition board as I thought
I could have filled the board a bit more. However what I wanted to fill the board with was not my
own work it could basically be classed as part of my research. But I think it didn’t look right being on
the board as it wasn’t my own pictures and it was just pictures form Google and Pinterest. I did not
realise this until it was too late. If I had more time I would have arranged to take picture myself using
the photography studio in college. I would have taken photographs of fashion, hair and make-up
from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s 80’s, 90’s and present day. This is to show the developments that have
occurred though the years. I would also perhaps create a colour scheme for my work as I did not
have one. However I think that my overall design looked better than I expected and I am happy
with this. I feel as though this project was over too quickly and if I had one extra week I would have
took some photographs of Fashion, Hair & Make-up to show the different developments I have been
looking at. When asking other member of the class about my final exhibition design most of the
people that I asked shared their opinions witch where mostly pretty much all good. I agreed with
their point of views.
When it comes to health and safety I had to make sure that when spray mounting my photographs I
wasn’t spraying nears anyone or anyone’s work and I had to also be very careful when using the
sharp cutting knifes.
When doing this project I found out that change will happen no matter what. Everything has to
develop at some point otherwise there will be no room for improvements. People need change in
the world in order to improve ourselves. Developments may not always seem like a good thing but
over time they turn out good.
In conclusion I feel that I could have produced strong work given an extra week to do so, although
what I did produce I am happy with what I produced. I have enjoyed doing this project and if I were
to do it again I would take my own fashion, hair and make-up photographs I would also try even
harder to create the moving image I wanted to create and not use such a basic video program.