Final Portfolio

Due:

Wednesday, 12/1

The final portfolio will consist of jpeg files turned in. It should represent your strongest work created over the course. It will be graded as a separate project. It would be a good idea to strategize what you will be submitting ahead of time with the instructor. Revisions to any project images you are submitting are welcome. If you are submitting a revision, please indicate with the filename. Use the following criteria:

Electronic:

• Jpegs, highest quality
• 1200 pixels in longest direction
• sRGB
• LASTNAME_PROJECTNAME (REVISION)_(number).jpg

Examples:
jordan_movieposterREVISED_1.jpg

jordan_digitalphotos_1.jpg

jordan_digitalphotosREVISED_2.jpg

Projects represented in portfolio:

• Project 1, digital photos (3 images)
• Project 2, Image Combination (1 image)
• Project 3, Culture Jam (1-3 images)
• Project 4, Video Project (no need to turn this in again, unless you have made changes to original)
• Project 5, Movie Poster (1 image)
• Project 6, Open project (as many images that comprise your final piece or pieces)
• Any additional work you have made for the class outside of specific assignments that you wish to include as part of your portfolio

For project 6, you will also turn in work files (psd, pdf) as part of that particular assignment.

Proposals: Open Project

Review the reading supplement to the course: Digital Art (Christiane Paul). Find an artist in the book (any chapter) who is doing something that you find inspiring. Describe their work/ideas/approaches/techniques in your proposal. Use 1-2 of these aspect as a starting point for a project of your own. The idea is to use the positive influence of an artist you admire to launch you into new territory. If you are excited, you can't help but be original. Propose the scope of your project as you presently see it. Describe themes, concepts, methods, techniques you anticipate exploring.

Length: 1 page, double space.

Proposals due: Wed 11/10, hard copy (typed). Please no email—(inbox overloads!)

The project is due the last class of the course, Wednesday 12/1.

Spring Digital Photography Courses

Digital Photographic Arts

Art 328-001

***NOTE TIME CHANGE*** 3:00 pm – 5:45 pm MW

Faculty: Chris Jordan

Learn essentials of digital workflow from image capture through print. Discover new modes of picture making in the digital realm. Gain mastery over image-editing tools (Photoshop). Be inspired by contemporary photographic artists and develop your own body of work.

Pre-requisites: Art 218, Art 224, or permission of the instructor.

Photography: Creative Studio Lighting

Art 408-001

12:00 pm - 2:45 pm MW

Faculty: Chris Jordan

Learn how creative studio lighting can transform your photography. Learn fundamentals for still life, portraiture, location work and other applications. Explore natural, hot light and strobe light sources, reflectors, light modifiers and more. Develop a body of work exploring the use of light as an expressive photographic medium. The course will primarily be taught digitally, but skills also apply to film.

Pre-requisites: Art 318, Art 224, or permission of the instructor.

Movie Poster Project

For this project, create a movie poster for your video project. The finished poster should have a strong design that is in keeping with a professionally designed movie poster. Study existing movie posters and look to them as design templates to help you with image ideas, layout and typography decisions. The finished piece should look convincing as a movie poster.

A great catalog of movie posters (the good, bad and ugly) can be found here:

http://impawards.com/index.html

Other useful resources:

Fonts for billing blocks (the credits appearing in movie posters)

SteelTongs

Infictus

SFMoviePoster

1. Create your background graphics in Adobe Photoshop and/or Illustrator
2. Layout and Typography should be set in InDesign
3. You will turn in contributing photoshop file, and final PDF output file
4. Design the poster for a size of 11"x14" at 300dpi.
5. Be mindful of bleeds and build these into your design
6. Make sure all graphics are of adequate resolution to support final print size

Final Posters will be evaluated on:

1. Correct file setup (file types, size, resolution, color space, etc.)
2. Correct use of applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, inDesign)
3. Fresh, creative, exciting graphic ideas
4. Strength of design (layout, typography) that is convincing as a movie poster

Production/Due Dates:

• Production Critique 11/15
• Final Poster Due 11/22

Class recommendations: Videos

Prince and Cinderalla

Favorite Pants

Are you watching closely? (animals)

Cabinet unto the world

winnebago warriors

"drop out"

black

haunted camera

City One Minutes

Old French Lady

Chinese Stamp

Tri Topolja, Borschagovskij

Sewing Machine

Insomnia, Bell Soto

Je me figeais, Baptiste Sola

Marcel the shell with shoes on (very funny)

Extension 21

Project 4: Video Art

Due Dates:

Monday 10/18:

• email (cjordan@as.ua.edu) two links for experimental videos that have inspired you
• story board

Monday 10/25:

• Video footage due, captured / converted to .mov format

Monday 11/1:

• Initial cut due for screening critique

Monday 11/8:

• Final Videos Due

Additional dates TBD

For this project, create an experimental art video ranging in length from 1-3 minutes.

The video should have a distinct theme, concept or even a plot. This is entirely up to you—think way outside the box and push beyond the expected.

Its advisable to watch and study many examples of video art projects for inspiration. While Hollywood films are often tied to obvious linear plots, with experimental video there is no need to do something so rigid. Be abstract, poetic, suggestive, wild, weird...but always keep quality in mind.

Basic steps:

1. Arrange for video equipment (should be done by now)
2. Watch a lot of video art
3. Brainstorm your ideas... develop the "story"
4. Storyboard ideas... pre-plan your general shots and sequences
5. Arrange actors, shooting sessions
6. Shoot footage
7. Capture footage... your footage must be captured into .mov file
8. Edit footage with iMovie
9. Score video in Garage Band (add music, sound effects, etc.)
10. Output final movie file

Check out these links to get you going with some possible approaches. Others can be found at the site (link located on the bar to the right)... some ranging from profound to clever, to downright odd.

The One Minutes Site

Vimeo Experimental Channel

Dramatic narrative

Extended moment

Time Lapse Typology

Performance Art

Weird

Francis Alys

Isaac Julian

Bill Viola

Jym Davis

Elizabeth Holly Hurt

Baptise Sola

Project 3: Culture Jam

Project Due:

10/18

Digital technologies allow singular images to be re-mediated or re-manifested into numerous forms, venues, locations, simultaneously and instantly. Images, paired with text in slick design layouts appear in advertisements on multiple fronts, trying to sell us something. We're bombarded with these messages.

Some useful terms:

• Mediation: An intervention by which direct experience is recorded/represented by some sort of medium (words, music, paint, film, digital, video, etc.), for the purpose of (re)presentation.
• Remediation: Essentially, mediation of mediation… existing media forms are subjected to additional acts of mediation or recording (and then subsequent presentation)
• Culture Jamming: The highjacking of commercial/pop culture to deliver a subversive or protest message. Here, "jam" refers to both improvisation and the blocking of communication.

An advertisement is an act of remediation. Photographic meaning is slippery. When combined with text, the meaning of a photograph can easily morph or change to support a bigger concept or idea. The ambiguity of photographic meaning is clearly illustrated with this example from class:

The remediation of photographs with slogans, logos and corporate identity can result in powerful and compelling communication. Ask yourself... what am I being sold? What fantasies or cultural myths are being broadcast?

The Artist Barbara Kruger was concerned with these questions when she created her Billboard works:

Richard Prince created "artwork" drawing attention to icons of American masculinity, in particular the "Marlboro Man," by re-photographing advertisements.

For this project we'll take a closer look at advertising as an act of re-mediation. In a rebellious (and hopefully empowering) act of cultural jamming (another form of re-mediation), the assignment is to work with a well known ad campaign and create a smart, pithy spoof. Look to a product that perhaps bothers or annoys you and create a "re-mixed" advertisement that sharply pokes fun at it.

Criteria:

1. Finished piece should look like a professional advertisement. Logos, text and layout should resemble the original in a way that makes the spoof clear.
2. All the photography and supporting imagery must be yours. So, choose an ad you think is technically within reach.
3. The image should use legitimate digital workflow skills as taught in class
4. The final piece should be clever, smart and engaging.

For inspiration, check out work by the infamous cultural jamming duo, The Yes Men. Whether or not you agree with their message, their tactics are certainly bold.

More in the advertising vein:

From adbusters

From adbusters

©1997 Abrupt

for more:

https://www.adbusters.org/gallery/spoofads