NA: 3 TO SPARE

3 To Spare from Lance Flores on Vimeo.

So, I'm a little dissapointed that Vimeo took my video a little quick...the transitions are faster on the Vimeo than I intended. Quicktime renders them fine. Anyway, this is my show opener for "3 To Spare"

VISLANG: PROJECT 3 FINAL STATMENT & PROGRESS

Communication Theory. What a great thing to learn. After all these years of communicating, I finally learn the theories and explanations behind it all. I have to say, I was unaware of the many different models out there, and now, mine will soon be out there. I'm very interested in people and the way people communicate, so this project was one that kept me even more excited. I was really drawn to the Emmert/Donaghy model. Why? Mainly because of the support from perception, reasoning, and motivation. Perception is a huge factor that I notice when communicating, and the simple slight change in tone of voice can alter that perception.

I took a little influence from the Emmert/Donaghy model in the making of mine. Perception is one that occurs in most of my artifacts, if not all. From this influence, I proposed the idea of creating small little booklets to teach people about communication theory. Each of my four booklets is based around a persona that I created from our actual conversations we had at the beginning of this project. I created the following persona's: Mr. Perfectionist, Little Miss Confused, The Weirdo, and The Know It All. Now honestly, I had an extremely tough time with creating these persona's. I still don't believe they are there yet, as good well-known, well-rounded personas. I thought the booklets needed help with a base, so I paired each persona with a name, making it more personal. "Meet Justin, Mr. Perfectionist". This came about from the idea of certain type of name calling I guess you could say. For example, similar moments have happened in studio. "You pulled a Mo!" means you cut your finger with an xacto. I was trying to apply the same concept to my communication booklets. "Oh I'm speaking to a Justin"-means I'm speaking with a perfectionist-which means we're going to be communicating with no noise. I'm thinking these set of books would be something not only for laughs, but for friends to learn about other communication styles...maybe they'll relate to a persona. haha.

Throughout the piece is the use of Adobe Garamond typeface, and my personal hand-written type. I wanted to use the idea of marking up a paper as marking up the annotations. To further support that and keep cohesiveness, all annotations are in red (the idea of red pen marking up). I gave each persona its own color (Orange-The Know It All, Blue-Mr. Perfectionist, Green-The Weirdo, and Magenta-ish-Little Miss Confused) The narrators color or basic text color is brown, a color that went well with each persona color, and it is also keep cohesive throughout each book. Each book cover also has a subtle pattern in background using an analphabetic I thought fit each persona. (An ellipsis-The Know It All, Question Mark-Little Miss Confused, Exclamation Point-Mr. Perfectionist, and a Pilcrow-The Weirdo)

Altogether, I think I met the project objectives. I created a visual engaging, mulitple page, time based refined graphic design artifact. I designed a communication model referencing the tradtional communication models, and I referenced the orignal dialogue within my design. (They take for of the conversations in each project.)

I am taking a lot with me from this class. From the basics of making sure I explore all my options, concepts, and image making processes to using synecdoche, metaphors, pathos and logos modes of appeal, and communication theory in my future designs. Like "they" say, it really is worth the struggle to see the progress in the end.I feel I have progressed since I transferred in. I know I look and notice these modes of appeal and rhetorical tropes more often in work already out there. It's one thing a understand message within a design, but it's a whole other feeling to understand why you understand that message.






Hand annotated all four books!













Can you see the patterns?



















My box, porable like a deck of cards

NA: STATEMENT FOR SHOW OPENER

Explain hierarchy of and relationships between the communication channels. what takes priority, if anything, and when does it do so?

My three communication channels are image, music, and text. I designed the show opener to where the viewer is on an adventure through the bowling alley viewing areas such as the outside sign, a close up of the lanes and pins, the computer mechanism that keeps score, and finally ending on a series of three different bowling balls on a rack. Throughout the show opener, the music has a secondary presence and the type is presented only at certain moments displaying the bulk of the show, starring, and the title.

Why you used the media/production techniques you utilized. what did that rendering style or formal approach adds to your story?

I have to say I was a little lucky when I went to shoot my footage, that I got a semi empty bowling alley. I knew I didn't really want many people in it, where that might get distracting for the viewer. My previous knowledge of this specific bowling alley is that there is a lot of elderly throughout the day that bowl, and since my show opener is about younger kids, I don't think that would have worked out well. So I like that it's pretty empty and basic. The bare necessities. Giving the still images movement through stop motion was the route I chose for rendering. For one, I have yet to build a stop motion piece before this project, and they always draw my attention. I like the look of stop motion pieces and have a great deal of respect for those who pull it off smoothly. I think it added a sense of playfulness to my piece and adventure. The idea of 3 kids who are amazing bowlers, growing up in a small town, and their stories on how they became so good.

What, if any, new things did you learn through this process? was it more difficult to orchestrate things with all your options open?

Well as I explained earlier, I have a great deal of respect for those who pull of stop motion well. I like the chaotic stop motion movies, but also the smooth stop motion pieces that seem like regular video. It's an amazing approach, and I definitely want to work more with it. I learned that it's a very tough process to cut some of your movie to fit the 30 sec. time frame and still somehow get a message across. I would have to say within this project, it was difficult to orchestrate everything in a shorter time frame than the other projects. I think it made me realize what was possible, and what approaches should be used for another time where I have more time to spare. Throughout researching I found a couple show openers that were not even long at all. For example, "Glee" is a 1 second frame with white type on a black background and a group of people shouting "Glee!". After the title sequence was played, the titles were spread throughout the first few minutes of the show. Quite a bit of shows these days have the same approach. I believe "Heroes" has an expressive title and the extra titles are spread throughout the first few minutes also. I would have liked to try an approach like that.

FINAL PRODUCT

WHOA! What a semester! I can't believe it's already about to end.

I have had my identity for about a year and a half. I worked on it for about 2 and a half years, and have found something I am comfortable with. Of course, these things are always a work in progress, so I'm sure it will change one day. For now though, I think it describes me well. It's clean, simple, orderly with a little bit of fun friendly rounded corners. There's even a little hidden aha play on letter forms hidden within it, which is what I like also. I like to surprise people with my randomness. It's like friends that can break dance or sing really well...and you didn't even know it. ha.

Anyway, I'm not pleased with my pdf...this is my 4th time making one, and I guess I just haven't found the right functionality that works for me. As for the leave behind, I was really excited about creating it (kidwell I'm sure you recognized that by our meetings). I'm pleased with the way it turned out, my only thing I wished I would have done differently is makin the cut off a little lower, so I didn't interfere with my face.

My mailing labels.


Business card...possibilities. (Above=front | Below=back)


I guess for the Thank You card, my thinking was to show them the actual hidden meaning within my logo...in case they didn't quite understand it upon first sighting.









GO LIGATURE!