Evaluation

 

Evaluation

 

Making the final 8 sample digital & thermochromic screen print designs have been a challenge but I feel, overall, that they have developed well. Within my sports samples I am displaying the colour change in sports wear when heat is produced from the body,  to help dancers sustain exercise. Researching different stretchy sports fabrics has been successful, although it was a challenge  as I need to work out the shrinkage value to the material after digital printing. However, the technicians were able to offer support and guidance in relation to the most optimum materials and fabrics for my sportswear designs.  Within my research, I have looked at Stella McCartney’s Adidas collection and Mary Katrantzou It should be noted, however, that I feel modern architecture has supported my inspiration the most. The dominating structured shapes have helped me to reflect this into my drawings and then into final designs.

Making films for my live projects has been an adventure. I have experienced challenges in terms of balancing time for each project and I have struggled considerably in this area. I found the editing for the blog the hardest as it took up a significant amount of my time and it took considerable rewording and rethinking. This is something I will have to get used to quickly as working for different clients requires a great deal of editing time. I found working on Annah’s behind the scene shoot & the Berlin Fashion Film festival the most enjoyable and I learnt such a lot from them both. With Annah’s behind the scenes shoot I was able to assist Annah with direction and I used basic editing techniques so it worked smoothly and did not take up a lot of my time. I found the BFFFC the most enjoyable as I feel it reflected directly my concept of heat changing sport wear well and it was  uplifting to feel appreciated from a high ranking individual in  the fashion film industry who took a keen interest in my work.  For my personal investigation films showing heat change in a dancer's body, the UV & projection film, have also been an adventure and a challenge as it has offered the advantages of working with models and dancers outside of University and sourcing equipment from other areas that does not involve the ease of the normal University channels. In this way, it has helped me to work outside of the university and has given me a taste of how I would cope if I was a film maker for fashion films sourcing people, props and filming equipment.

 

For unit X, I will be developing my final designs and choosing one design for my garment that I will make for my fashion film. I plan to make a fashion film with my dancer Ina Colizza and Orson as well as an extended film crew as I have been sourcing more people to help film the shoot. It is most important in my work that I have a team available for my fashion film as it is quite a big project and has great potential if implemented well. A photographer has also seen some of my film project work online and has asked to collaborate with me for unit X.

 

 

 

Final screen Print & Digital designs

 

 

 

 

 

This week I worked on my final designs. I organised it well so my material was delivered late last week and then I produced my digital print design and screen printed on the following day. I am happy with my final sports samples but I will carry on working on them in unit X and construct one of the sample designs into a garment.

Final digital designs

Final Toile

This toile fit my dancer perfectly and I used fabric called Biscus.  I have also used power net for the panels to allow the body to breath. I will be adding more development to this toile in unit X and making it perfect before my final garment as this material is close to my sample print design material.  I feel I need to create another toile in the same material that l I have been using for my print designs.

 

These are my final digital background designs. Pixilation has been my direction within this work as I want to link it in with the geometric shapes. I feel they work well as a background before I screen print on them with the thermochromic geometric and floral screen prints. I had some trouble sourcing my sports material for my digital designs as there are very few lightweight stretchy materials that are suitable for digital printing. I tested the shrinkage of the material with the technician as stretchy materials tend to shrink down the digital design during the washing period.

 

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Development of Toil

This week I have been developing my toile. I have chosen to do my next toile in a light lycra cotton with netting for the panels. Making the shape of this did not take a long time and the technicians offered advice in constructing the toile. When fitting it on the dancer it did not fit on the inside of her thighs and it made a hole in the crotch area. As a result, for my toile, I will add a couple of inches around the thigh area.

Thermochromics new print tests

 

 

 

I have chosen to make 8 final print designs digital with screen printing on top. I have implemented some tests with the Thermochromics paint on white jersey before the final designs as I want to test out my new geometric and floral prints to screen printing.

These are a selection of my test prints that I have added foiling to give them a reflective effect as in sportswear reflective material is displayed quite a lot.

BFFFC film : Heat and Movement feedback

I have sent my idea to the Berlin Fashion Film competition and I have had feedback from one of the co- directors and their response is as follows:

                                                                                  

With this response, I have changed my idea and will be having my dancer there as a moving performance as an installation piece with the projecting designs. The dancer has agreed that they would be able to accompany me and perform at the festival. Hearing this positive response from a co-director from the competition was amazing and I appreciated that someone from the industry I wanted to get into was recognising and had enjoyed my work.

Start Of Toile

Over the Christmas break I have been working with the fashion designer Sinead Leonard.  As I will be making a range of toiles  for this project, Sinead has helped me to create a size 10 body suit for a dance sportswear that I will develop in unit X.  She gave advice for the best way to sew the toile and which materials are the most effective. It was good to work with someone who has worked in the industry of making sportswear for a sports company. Sinead told me to use a stretch light material including a lycra or cotton.

 

The process of this toile was to establish that the shape would be right for my model. In unit X, I will be developing this toile into a dance sportswear body suit, so it needs to look and fit perfectly to my dancer. Thankfully, this body stocking fitted my dancer well. I have drawn lines to show where I will be making panels for my next toil . This toile is made out of stretchy cotton.

New Drawings

Over the Christmas break I have created more flower drawings for the development of my final print designs. I have spent a considerable time on these drawings to make them as perfect as possible for screen printing.

       Thermochromic ink in water investigation

The idea of these two films was to show my interpretation of showing heat change in water. The part of my self-initiated project was to display a way of showing a basic movement without a garment or a model to show the concept of colour changing through heat that is linked to my sportswear that changes colour with heat.

The processes of both these films were challenging to show the colour changing within the water, but creating these two videos help me to think differently about displaying a concept in an alternative way. Film can be seen on memory stick

Berlin Fashion Film Festival Competition

Over the Christmas break I have planned to enter the Berlin fashion film festival competition. Over this time I have directed my efforts towards filming, editing and creating a pitch to the BFFF competition.

During the making of this film I wanted to relate to my self-initiated project ideas with the film itself. As my project is aiming to show heat changing through colour in my print designs for  sportswear I came up with the concept of using a moving projection of different coloured prints that changed colour across a dancer’s body as she was moving. With the construction of this film, I decided that I did not want to make it look projection. I want to make it look like the prints are actually changing colour across the white garment.

When editing this fashion film I made two final copies; one that had a lot of editing mirroring of the body and lots of different editing techniques and another which involved a film that had a more natural approach and less editing.

When working with Orson, he led the cinema photography and Ina the dancer was very easy to work with; they both understood my vision in what I wanted to create. It is very important when working with a film crew and your model or performer to have a good business relationship to create a film that has a strong concept. I chose to film the dancer on the floor with the projection on top of her so giving the illusion that there was not a projection at all but that the prints were ingrained into her clothes and her skin, which gave a good advertising print for me as a designer. When shooting the project, Orson was able to get close up shots of the body and different abstract movements that the model was creating. I feel that this gave a good effect when I was editing as you are able to see the print on the body from a close perspective across the skin and the clothing.

Investigation Thermal Dance film

   

                                                   

This week I made an investigation film that looked into thermal imagery and movement. I found a dancer called Ina Colizze to work with in my film. Orson also helped me with the cinematography. As this was a film to display a test, I wanted the film setting to be simple and plain. I got Ina to improvise a dance, as Orson and I were filming from a normal Nikon camera and also taking snaps from the thermal camera. At the end of the shoot I realised the photographs were not saving on the thermal camera memory card. To overcome this difficulty, I had to film Ina again. So, I arranged with her to film one of her dance classes in a studio. With the resolution of this problem, it turned out for the best as I had the ability to take photographs of other female dances with the thermal camera picking up their heat. This was good for my research as I had a significant amount more photo footage to work with and it allowed me to have a better understanding on where on the body heat is most produced.

Once I had all of my footage and imagery to work with I generated everything into a short investigation film. I have not displayed this on YouTube as I have used music that has rights against sharing it in a media promotion. As a consequence, I have stored this film on a memory stick.

Presentation

Within my presentation I was able to show my test Thermochromic prints and successfully showed them changing colour with a hand print of heat. I was also able to say that I have sourced a Thermochromic camera from the environmental team on the University campus. With this film, I will create an investigation film that will show a dancer moving in a space that will have stills in the editing process of the thermo images. It was said in my feedback if I am using a Thermochromic camera, I should use the still images to feed into my print designs, whether it is the shape of the thermos stills or putting the colours into my colour reference.

It was commented that it would be experimenting with the scale of my geometric and floral print designs. From this feedback, it has made me think about practising the scale of my prints within the Berlin Fashion Film competition.

Idea for investigation Film

One idea with my film work was to show a woman dancing using a temperature sensitive camera but as these are quite expensive to hire out it was not an option to use one. As a result, it was suggested in my tutorial  that I film someone using a normal camera and then edit it in Final Cut Pro to give an idea that the body is giving off heat and that it is getting hotter and hotter the more body with will react to my thermochromic ink with in my prints . Alternatively, I could try and hire out a heat sensitive camera from the science department in Geoffrey Manton on the MMU campus. I need to start focusing on how I can start making visual processes, showing the ideas of new technology rather than solely researching into them.    

Thermochromic Tests:

I have bought some thermochromic  ink pigment paint sourced from the internet. With this paint I have created test screen prints from my geometric and floral drawings. This test was to find out how well the colours change through heat. I found that the black ink worked well displaying the change of colour from black to grey to white with a warm palm touch. The blue and red ink did not work as well changing colour with heat. In the future of my final print designs I will use more black ink than blue or red.

Print design Development

     

Within my colour reference I have taken colours from my Salford Keys architecture photographs and experimented using these colours through paintings using hints of bright yellow and orange.  I have completely left church architecture and focused my drawing on modern geometric and structured shapes. I have chosen to do my drawing structure in a different way; by creating a geometric structure from my photograph and then developing them into a painting. It has helped me to create complex shapes and forms. 

Live project: Dance Trailer

Live project: Film editing Vlog

The context of this video is for YouTube and a beauty and fashion vlogger to talk about different fashion to a mostly female audience.  The concept of the project is making the film look both visually interesting and inviting. This can be done by using complex editing tools, increasing the videos professional feel, to entice people to watch Antoinette’s fashion and beauty vlog.

live project- Behind the scenes: Annah Hugh’s Photoshoot

The concept was to capture Annah directing a fashion shoot of her own, documenting the way she organises her garment and directs the model. Her garment was about making the feminine, masculine. The idea was to give the film as crisp and glossy an appearance as possible.

Live Project

I found a competition on the Tip website. I am going to enter the Berlin Fashion Film Competition. It includes creating a concept for an insulation piece. This could be anything that I want to create. So far in my planning, I will create a performing arts film that will reflect showing colour change through heat on clothing. I am still in the ideas process and I will develop this further on in the project. For this live project, it will also feed into my self initiated print designs. I will find a way to combine both my print design with the competition brief.

http://www.artsthread.com/competitions/callforideasberlinfashionfilmfestivalxartsthread/

Feedback from Trend UV & Projection films

I presented all three films in my tutorial and it was suggested in my feedback that I experiment with my film footage and test out 5 seconds showing 1 individual editing technique. It was said that I should experiment and test out more development filming processes rather than creating a film that is finalised so early on in this project. It was also commented that I should create short experimental films that help me to develop both my editing skills and my project. I have taken this feedback on board and I plan to create short films that are more artistic and scientific based, which will reflect my ideas within heat changing sportswear. 

Making the film UV & Projection

For the start of creating the UV & Projection film, I needed to test the UV lights with the other props in my film that will hopefully reflect with the UV light.

UV test

As this picture shows, I tested it using one of my friends who had bleached blonde hair, which is the same as the model I will be using for the shoot. I also tested out the sportswear I had bought from a high street sports shop, with attached white & black ribbon. The tests were successful and the UV picked up the white bold reflective colours within the hair and clothing.

Working with the Crew

During the process of this shoot I had to take great care in thinking about every detail such as lighting, movement, timing, sound and visual interest. In my field of practice, it is important for me to collaborate with people in different courses to help me create my films. I used Megan Elise Halla, a model I worked with on Rianna Phillips Internship. I wanted to work with her again as I know she works well with direction and her body gestures and facial expressions create good visuals to work with. Megan is also has the right look to appeal to my consumer; a young female that is devoted to exercise and has an interest in sustaining an exercise goal. Oisin Baber, a music artist and a friend of mine from Bristol, wants to collaborate and create music for me throughout this 3^rd year. I am interested in his sound as he is very diverse and talented in creating complex beats and alternative music that replicates my vision in my films. Lydia Richards was my makeup artist for a shoot and I had to independently seek her out.  Her ideas and craft makeup ability was outstanding. Another crew member was Orson Ramskill-Pugh who is a friend of mine and studying film.  He was the technical director in the shoot and assisted me to set up and use the equipment. He is very skilled in his knowledge of camera and lighting equipment.

Working on set

Whilst on set it took some time setting up and getting the projection to work. I found working on set when guiding my film exciting and successful as everyone worked well together. These are some of the photographs from behind the scenes of the shoot.  I wanted to show the process of Lydia applying the UV sensitive makeup to demonstrate the transition from normal lighting to UV light. During the filming process I found it difficult to multi- task all jobs; filming, directing and controlling the projection. This is a task that will most definitely improve through experience.

Editing

The editing process of these films took a considerable time. It was quite difficult matching the music to the visual movement. To overcome this, I changed the speed of each clip, making them faster to run smoothly with timing of the music. I have decided to create 3 different fashion films. I wanted to work out for my own benefit whether it looked effective with just the projection and one just with the UV or both UV & Projection together. I think the films work better separately as they show their intention of setting sportswear in a visually appealing way.

UV &Projection

I want to create a range of art fashion films that will display my creative intentions and my skills as a film maker. For this first film project, I want to show a type of trend in sportswear. I am looking into reflective & UV sensitive active wear and would like to try and display this in a creative and exciting visualisation of UV light with movement and speed. For inspiration and research, I have looked into three fashion films that have helped me with both the editing and creative process.

https://vimeo.com/138643303

Reka Nyari- Neon

I looked at the Neon fashion film by Reka Nyari who is a photographer as this film shows what kind of company I want to be working like. I have taken some of their editing processes of rewinding and gaining speed within the editing of my film. This film has also helped me to understand which colours appear the most powerful using UV light.

  

 Show Studio

As I want to be working like Nick Knight, I looked at these two videos for their sophistication and target for detail in the film. It is important for a film maker to get timing perfect and both of these films show how the movement of the video clips run smoothly with the music. This is for the interest of the audience so the viewer is excited and drawn to the visual movement and sound.

Feedback & Reflection of presentation

During my presentation I displayed a range of bright and bold modern prints showing a range of modern & historical architecture, geometric shapes and flowers within the print pattern. I have used less historical architecture patterns and drawing within my final prints, as my influences and market seek a modern concept, with the far future of my designs reflecting my modern futuristic concept.

After the feedback of my presentation, it was presented that I create more modernistic creative films that reflect my project into reflective sportswear. It was also stated in the presentation that I tend to use too much of the same colour pallet. This is something that I feel  I have to work on as I tend to use blues and pinks within my work and within this project I should broaden my horizons, and use colours  from architecture buildings .It was reflected in my feedback that I should expand my knowledge in sports materials and source from material companies such as Bags Of Love and Whaley’s outside of the University. It was commented in the presentation that my digital print designs might be printed on the wrong side of the material, which is something over which I had no control as the technician printed the designs onto my fabric. However, as a future note, I will not be using jersey lycra as the print designs did appear as clear as the Photoshop image and it blurred the digital design a little.

Final Prints for Bradford/ Print for fashion

These are my final print designs to be used for the presentation. From examining my prints, I feel I may need to focus more on my geometric designs and identify ideas with my modern architecture photographs more. I chose to use bright colours for my print designs as I feel it feeds into my focus of relating back to Stella McCartney Adidas collection. 

                                     

                                               

I have chosen this print design for the Bradford project/ print for fashion, I feel that is my strongest print and it demonstrates my refection of structured sportswear. 

Salford Quays & Drawings

After I have created the drawings in relation to these photographs, they will be merged with the more historical architecture and flowers into a whole concept. This will be used to create my sports prints.

These are a selection of my strongest drawings that I have been testing out with different digital print designs. It has been a challenge to try and combine modern, historical architecture and florals as a collaborative subject as the composition of the different topics can demonstrate a print design that is too messy, than shapes that fit nicely together. I feel that the focus in my visual concept is to be more focused and feed into topics that link well with each other. I have used a lot of my floral design in my prints as I feel they work well in my collection With my architecture drawings I have chosen to use strict lines because I feel that they relate more to my project and I can feel this work will follow into geometrics and cubes.

 

This week, it has been important for me to focus my primary research on modern architecture. I decided to take some photographs of Salford Quays and I especially liked the different shapes of the modern buildings. This provided me with a great deal of inspiration in terms of visual aesthetics in relation to the varying shapes of architecture. when taking the photographs I wanted to construct a short of juxtaposition to generate different clips of shapes, patterns and forms. These are some of photographs that I think capture an interesting lined and shapely structure. I wanted to capture the dominating structure of the buildings and the modern like characteristics that expand over the surroundings.