Time

Faculty – Ram

What is time?

week 1

7.01.2020

Our first class started with what is time is and our own individual perception of time.

Few words that described time were;-

illusion, tenses, moments,existence, priceless, reality, opportunity, unpredictable, karma, fate, limitless, transition etc.

Symbolism

Time is like a mandala. Where the dot stands for an idea or an opportunity to come. It is used as the end or being of time. It represents creation.

The upward triangle has many symbolism:-

1.Three sides represent the past, present and future.

2.the positive male energy

3.fire

Whereas the inverted triangle represents the negative energy or the female energy.

When we combine the upward triangle with the downward triangle, the star represents creation.

Then we were asked to take one aspect of time and make two illustrations of the same word with two interpretation or understanding.

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Narratives on time

week 2

14.06.2020

1.

I was a very snobby child when i was young. I felt that i had the best clothes and i went to the most posh and elite school in my city. My confidence, rather over confidence was very evidently portrayed by my actions in very way. Soon enough, i hit puberty. I was suffering through severe acne and my self confidence had hit rock bottom. There was a time when i didnt want to attend family gatherings or go out to socialize. i felt that because of my “ugliness” people started looking at me differently. But as time past, i started to deal with this better. My horizon broadened and I started to realize that i dont need to look in a certain way to please people. I dont need to wear layers of makeup to hide my scars. The only thing that i needed to hide was my low self confidence and start embracing my self. I started smiling more and from being a snob, i believe over the years ive turned myself into a grown woman who loves her flaws and accepts others flaws too.

2.

Its a true saying that time passes by very quickly only when you are having a good time. I remember, when i was in school and art was my favourite subject. My art subject, although having the most temperamental teacher was a class i never missed. I didnt know when time would flew buy in that class and i would still be left with half of my painting. Where as i loathed the commerce subject. Its ironical how my commerce teacher is the sweetest lady ive every know. But every second passing by seemed like a minute and every minute an hour. It was a torture. I couldnt stay awake in her class and if i managed to do it, it was only because of my day dreams.

3.

Almost every woman experiences this. Its a thing they dread the most yet want it to occur. The first few days you are in a recovery phase, but after 2-3 days you are back in the field. The happy hormones kick in and you start feeling alive. You want to party, look your best, perform your best. But obviously that phase cant be for long. Soon enough, before you could try to forget it, it starts coming back again. You become an emotional wreck and it feels like the world is going against you. You wring your eyes out while watching animated movies. There is always the wait and anticipation. You never know where you are going to experience it and then suddenly, One day in the worst and awkward time it is here, Your periods.

4.

I have allergy to dust so as soon as I’m near a dusty place I get the worst cold possible and water starts running down my nose like a open tap. So I travel once every two months and after traveling I place my things which i wouldnt be requiring in immediate future under my bed or in a corner. So ususally after i have emptied my suitcase it goes into a corner. After days when im about to travel back to kolkata i take out my suitcase and clean the dust that has accumulated on it. As soon as i come in contact with dust i have a horrible allergy and always fall sick the day before im supposed to fly out. I have soaked napkins and have had many allegra pills possible but the next day im fine and ready to go.

5.

I remember how I would sit in my grandfathers lap and he would take me to his small picnics with his friends. I used to hold his hand while crossing roads and he used to take to to these satsangs where he would make me sing bhajans on the harmonium. Everyone would pat me on my back and know me as ‘poddar ji ki poti’. But as both of grew older, both of us grew more apart. I became busy with school life and then college Now its me who drives him around places and gives him a hand to stand. Time really has passed by, neither am i his little grand daughter nor can i sing anymore.

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Photographs and thumbnails

week 3

21.01.2020

i made my thumbnails and got my pictures according to my first narrative as to how i mature over time and realise that i dont need to put heavy makeup or look good in order to make people like me.

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I decided to go ahead with my first iteration and asked my roommates to click my photos. They helped me in posing as well as instructing me about the angles in which i should pose.

I was asked to redo few photographs and also few of my frames were taken out of the narrative. I was explained how the hand coming in and me removing it looked something else than what i wanted to show. Hence my photographs required improvement.

Taking these photos made me realize how to draw a narrative through pictures in a sequential manner. I was also made aware of certain know hows of photography and posing.

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Rectifications

week 4

28.01.2020

From the 4th week I got the rectified images and changed my narrative a little. Instead of society accepting me after the applied makeup, i changed it to how society no matter how hard i try would want me to keeping looking better and adding more and more layers.

These are the rectifications Images I took:

Re-shooting images required me to recreate the same incident. I had to click the pictures in that particular time for the lighting to be similar to my previous photos. I also had to create the same scene by wearing the same clothes and applying the same style of make up. I felt that re-shooting was a tedious process. One mistake that happened was that both set of pictures were of different mb size.

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Peer review

week 5

5.02.2020

In this class we saw everyone’s narrative and gave a peer to peer review. I got very interesting ideas for few of my friends and i told them. At the same time my peers also gave a every helpful feedback.

I was asked to play with the lighting of the pictures. Where i am sad i should have a dim lighting whereas where im happy in the end i should have a bright lighting.

I was asked to make my narrative more dramatic.

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Process work

week 6

12.02.2020

I drew thumbnails of the changed narrative. This is how it looks-

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After getting the feedback from my peers and faculty, I decided to play with lighting. I made the entire room dark and held an emergency light as a spot light on my face. This lighting was used for my first shot to set the mood of sad and gloomy.

Here I changed the position of the light from sideways to a slightly off centered light.

Here are few extras pictures that were taken while the process :-

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This time I learnt how to play with lighting of the shot to make it dramatic. Each shot was enhanced after assigning each photo a style of light. Now each picture showcased a narrative of it own after the editing.

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Videos and audios

week 7

18.02.2020

Once the pictures were shot, chosen and placed in a sequential order, I started looking for existing videos and audios on the internet. Keeping the dramatic effect that i wanted to create i chose different audios to suit different moods. My narrative had two phases. The first phase where i am gloomy and sad, The audio i went for had soft,slow piano tunes. But for the second phase of realization, The audio picks up a beat and it has faster and happier key notes of the piano.

These are the links-

https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/memories

https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/tomorrow

I also selected my videos very carefully, keeping in mind the overall lighting, filter, and colours. I also picked up videos where you could not recognize the human being in it. These are the links to my video-

https://www.pexels.com/search/videos/woman%20getting%20haircut/

https://www.pexels.com/video/a-woman-applying-mascara-to-thickens-and-enhanced-her-eye-lashes-3181592/

https://www.pexels.com/video/a-woman-running-towards-the-sea-water-3326928/

https://www.pexels.com/video/a-person-stepping-on-fallen-leaves-and-flowers-while-running-3617005/

https://www.pexels.com/video/a-person-walking-his-fingers-through-the-ray-of-light-3712708/

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Final video submission

week 8

25.02.2020

Once i started editing my video i realized that each image had to be in landscape to make the video overall cohesive. I also edited a few pictures to make it look more glamorous.

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This is the link to my final video-

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Rq5kmxuAjiXEkIRgmgb4YGGd-w8TfkBj

Reflection of the project–

I had great fun in executing this project as i always wanted to learn video editing. This project urged me to learn few technicalities of video editing on adobe premier pro. Through this project i learnt the context of time through a narrative. I learnt how to take photographs, lighting, editing of photos and videos, posing for a theme etc. This project was intense and challenging. I experienced and learnt many things which were unknown to me.

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Movie- Harishchandrachi Factory

week 9

3.03.2020

We started a new project with watching a movie called Harishchandrachi Factory which was based on a true story of how the first moving film came in India. This film narrated the story of Dadasaheb Phalke and the challenges he faced while directing and producing the first film.

The few aspects that i noted down from the film are-

1. Narrative technique- Realistic
2. Plot- Revolution
3. Recurring themes – Social disapproval, innovation, Cultural and traditional references
4. Language- Local language(marathi)
5. Time- Old style garments, Old camera, single, old theatres

At the end of the class, we were formed into groups of 5, and given a particular era and movies. The era given to my group was 1966-1980. Movies given were :- Sholay, Chitchor, Grih Pravesh, Manthan, Mrigya.

We were asked to see all and identify time aspects.

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Mind Mapping for movies

week 11

17.03.2020

I made one mind maps on the the movie sholay. Over the week i saw only 2 movies, sholay and chitchor. I was asked to see all the 5 movies.

While making the mind map i was able to break down the movie into characters, plot, time elements, themes, metaphors better. Gave me clearer idea of the ‘Curry western’ movie -sholay.

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Compiled Mind map

week 12

I made another mind map on the movie Mrigya. I felt a disconnect to the movie as the movie was slow and the picture quality bad. The story line moved slow but i liked the metaphorical was of killing an evil man as the ‘royal hunt’.

As we group we also made a combined mind map of the Era. It had all the elements in it, but it was not systematically placed.

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Choosing element

week 13

This is the final combined mind map we made. We made a digital mind map and put elements under distinct and important headers which was given to us on the first class of this project.

Through proper discussion with the faculty and team mates and research on the era. We decided the element of women empowerment. This is the write up about it-

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Iterations

week 13

I made these two prototype character posters for the movie sholay and mrigya.

In sholay i try to bring out the topic of window remarriage and how ‘thakkur’ was acceptable of his widowed daughter-in-law to get married.

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In the movie Mrigya, I’m trying to showcase the dawn lighting that falls on Mamta Shankar when her husband dies for killing the villain to save his wife and hence bringing about a safer and a better world for women.

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Final iteration

week 14

This is the prototype i made for the basanti and tried to showcase her to be outspoken and bold through the shout out lips sticker.

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However, this poster did not look good and cohesive as it followed too many art styles. I was asked to make a cohesive poster.

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Final Submission

week 15

Process work of final submission–

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The process used to compiling the poster-

1. Used quick selection tool, laso tool and magnetic selection tools to select out the items i wanted
2. placed them on the main poster, copy pasted many layers(hands and laser beam),shuffled the layers and erased few lines to create a natural looking pile of hands.
3. Used different levels of posterization (Adjustment layer) on all the elements
4. Reduced the opacity of the hills to 90
5. Used two colours of the projecting rays backdrop-added texture of leaves-used layer mask to create rip paper effect.
6. Laser beam created on Illustrator

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Final Poster along with its explaination-

Mock-up of the poster-

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Process work video-

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ySxg8C8UzKoaqRS20V5YDFKfhV6uXeK5

Final compilation of all the team member’s work –

Reflection–

Through this project i learnt how to analyse an era through any audio-visual content, in this case, films. I broke down each film into tiny elements and hence understood what all aspects form a great movie. Finally understanding and identifying a common recurring element that binds the films together to the era. Then working on that element to communicate it through a visual art form. I learnt how to communicate a time period as well as bring out the narrative in a woman’s take. I also got introduced to making posters in a graphic collage style. I tried to make a poster with a modern take on a old movie. It was a fun project as there were no boundaries and anything could be explored.

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