Week 1: 8th September
Documentary
Identity and Campaigns:
Campaigns are supposed to spread awareness and try making change by encouraging others to make a difference. A social campaign is a organised way to spread awareness, influence or motivate action towards societal issues. Using various advertising techniques. This includes media, such as videos, posters, social platforms. This helps the audience to engage and for the campaigns message to be spread to the intended audience.
Throughout the years the way campaigns and businesses advertise has changed due to the growth of technologies.
Some social media advertising include:
Banner ads - Images or animations on a website which take users to the advertisers' webpage when clicked on
We learnt about this one organisation called "GreenPeace" their purpose is to expose and confront the causes of environmetal destruction. They work to bring consumers to change so that the can make better decisions when making purchases for example. They make direct action to protect the Earth and promote solutions for a much safe and peaceful future.
Greenpeace UK (2025) About Greenpeace - Greenpeace UK. https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about-greenpeace/.
The campaign uses green through there whole website and logos, which makes the seem safe and all about nature and keeping the environment safe which exactly what the campaign is about
Introduction to Blender
Today we were taught to use the simple features on blender such as adding mesh, resizing, colouring, changing angles and etc.
I've learnt that to add any shaped mesh you click Shift and A
Social Campaign
A social campaign is multiple actions taken on different social media platforms to promote a specific message, product or service.
There are many techniques to advertise a campaign, this can be through online advertising, digital marketing, print advertising and etc.
When your advertising something you need to consider some factors, what the target audience is, the type of publicity, type of advertisement, where you want to put the placement, how you want it to look, what kind of text you'd like on it and etc.
What are What are the elements of a great social media campaign? (2024).
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/knowledge-base/what-are-the-elements-of-a-great-social-media-campaign/.
New technologies has changed the way in which advertisers reach their markets. There are much more advertisements that involve the use of screens. For example there are images or animations that come up on websites which takes the user to the advertisement when clicked on, this is called banner ads. Pop ups, these appear on the users screen without them requesting for the advert. Floating ads that move across a user's screen. These are all just examples of the changes in advertisement after the growth in technology, there are more other examples of screen advertisement which are quite similar but are unique with there own type of use.
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Camera Shot Sizes & Angles Task
In this lesson we learnt different shots in detail and went out with cameras to use apply the new knowledge we learnt. As Ive learnt this before, this time around I felt much more confident with the terms. While setting the camera for different lightings and settings I felt much more confident.
These are screenshots of some of the different clips we took with various different angles. The one below is from the Dutch tilt clip we took. This type of shot if supposed to create disorientation to the audience, as the off angle if not something that you would usually see.
This is a screenshot from a close up clip we took, usually close up on persons face is to show their expression.
Different shots and angles help the audience understand the narrative of the scene in a much deeper level. They are all used for different reasons to carry the scene forward.
High angles in film are usually used to show the inferiority the characters are in and showcase their vulnerability. The same thing but vice versa when it coms to low angles. The character or object is shown with more power and are inferior in the situation.
Week 2: 15th September
Constructivists
Constructivism is an artistic and architectural movement that began in Russia around 1913, which rejected old ways of art. Constructivists believed that art should reflect modern industrial word and that art is a practice for social purposes.
This poster is designed by Rodchenko who was one of the most versatile constructivist and Productivism artists who emerged after the Russian Revolution.
Its a famous soviet constructivist designed in 1924, its an advertisement made for books, promoting "Books on All Branches ode to Knowledge" the large red text means "BOOKS" in Russian. Rodchenko created this poster as part of a campaign for Lengiz, the Leningrad State Publishing House. The reason was to encourage literacy and promote reading among the Soviet public, an important part of the early Soviet Union's cultural and educational revolution
This is a famous example of the Russian Constructivist and Suprematist propaganda art, its called "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" in Russian.
This art was made by El Lissitzky in the 1920 during the Russian Civil War. During this time, the Red Army was fighting the White Army for the control of Russia after the 1917 Revolution. The artwork represents the Red Army defeating the White forces. So essentially the red wedge piercing the white circle symbolises the Red Army breaking through and defeating the whites.
This artwork was made by Liubov Popova in the 1921 as a costume design for the play "The Magnanimous Cuckold". It is a costume design for the a stage production and wants a propaganda poster. The text is in Russian and it translates to "Actor's Production Clothing No. 5". Instead of of painting for galleries, Popova wanted her design as part of her move away from easel painting and she believed that art was meant to serve a social or practical purpose.
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Surrealism
Surrealism is when you don't use logic and rules, this art movement was founded by Andre Breton in 1924. As a technique it relies on the juxtaposition of symbols, images or action.
This is a great campaign technique as it grabs the audiences attention as its most likely to stay in there memory. This makes them standout to the rest of the campaign posters as they are less predictable then the rest of them
The surrealist filmmaker, Jan Švankmajer, know for his use f three-dimensional stop-motion mixed with live-action animation. His films were never mainstream and visuals were usually challenging to interpret.
He says that he doesn't have an audience in mind when making these films, but he approaches all his work with a form of self expression.
Surrealism is also used in advertisements, this helps them to be more memorable and stay on the audiences mind for longer.
Coin Creation on Blender
First I had to add a cylinder shaped mesh to the project by clicking shift A, I adjusted the scale of the cylinder to my preferred size. I changed to texture paint mode then picked the colour I wanted the coin to be then put it over the shape. By changing the mapping to texture, I was able to add the stencil that was provided to be at the start of this lesson. I adjusted the stencil and then shaded it onto the mesh.
Below is what my end result looks like, now that I am familiar with some of the techniques no blender I'll be able to do other projects with much more confidence.
Surreal Social Issues Poster
I wanted to make a social issue poster that touches on the topic of the regression of female rights in Afghan. As of August 2021, women and girls in Afghanistan have faced one of the sharpest decline in rights.
Below is the mood board I put together having ideas on this topic. I went on google and Pinterest to find picture that related to the same ideas I had.
Documentary
Documentary modes:
- Expository is a set up of points of an argument of vie about a specific subject and feature "voice of God" a style of VoiceOver. For this type of documentary the cinematography is responsible for collecting footage, such as stock footage, archival footage, b-roll, re- enactments.
- Observational is embraced by watching through the camera, the intentions of this is to discover the truth by initially acting like a fly on the wall. This means to observe the documentary without interrupting the subject's real life.
- Participatory are defined by filmmaker interaction between the with the subject in the film. So the interviewer and the interviewee are captured.
- Reflexive
- Performative, it is personal emotional and is subjective
- A poetic documentary focuses on the mood, tone or the juxtaposition of imagery. This type of documentary usually has little or no narrative and is mainly directional through photography. Telling the story through visuals without any verbal context.
Documentary conventions:
- Interview
- Expert Testimony
- Voiceover Narration
- Elements of Research
- Archival Footage
- Reconstructions / Re- enactments
- Technical Conventions (Edit, lighting, cinematography)
Happy- A Mental Health Documentary
Documentaries can have different modes and conventions, this helps the documentary to be much more engaging to the audience. While watching the start of this one about mental health, I could tell that poetic mode was used as there was mainly shots that focused on the location to set the mood. Eventually there VoiceOver narrative were used in the documentary alongside performative mode, as there was some element of personal and emotional in the voiceover. I liked the way they had edited the title card, the visuals and the audio were merged together in good timing and the audio they have chosen throughout the whole documentary have made sense to the related topic.
There was elements of relevant facts that was shared to us audiences
Designers and Social Issues
We learnt about designers working on social issues in this lesson and we looked into few of designers that do so.
The designer Tibor Kalman Viewed design as a powerful medium to communicate ideas and provoke social action. Across his career, Kalman used his opportunity to address issues. such as multiculturalism, environmental sustainability and corporate ethics.
He founded colours magazine in 1991, to convince the audience that the differences are positive and all cultures have the same value. These are few of the front covers of the magazine.
This magazine front cover to me looks like a way they wanted the audience to realise that at the end of the day everyone are the same no matter their colour or race. That their are no hierarchy and that everyone are equal.
Adbusters is a media foundation they describe themselves as "a global network of artist, witters, writers, pranksters, student, educators and entrepreneurs" their goal is to to interrupt the normal consumerist experience to reveal the underlying ideology of an advertisement, media message or consumer artefact.
This is one of the most recent poser the Adbuster foundation has realised. It showcases recent controversial new and they help the message to be spread to
Photography Week 1:
This week was just a small introduction to the camera since I already know the basics well, I was able to work on other factors such as shallow depth of field. I was able to take many pictures. The pont of this lesson was to experiment so not all the pictures were perfect. Some were over exposed some were underexposed. These are details that can be adjusted in Adobe Lightroom, only so much.
Primary Documentary Research Analysis
Research is important when it comes to documentary. It is primary research in to a topic that guided by pre production primary/secondary research. This will help to decide on a specific focus for your research.
You can break down primary and secondary research even more, there is quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative research is facts that show numbers, essentially the quantity of the fact. Then there is qualitative research which delves into the the why question.
The documentary I've chosen to analyse is about the Sri Lankan civil war and I found this specific one on YouTube.
The creator of this documentary shares the message of the genocide that took place in Sri Lanka through out a spam of three decades. He takes about both sides of the "civil war" and keeps the everything non-bias. Mostly everything he talked about were factual, helping the audience to understand what the Tamil people had to go through. Archival footage taken from during that time was used on and off the documentary as well as voice overs was used through out the video. I could consider this documentary mode as a expository as the creator uses his voice to talk about the topic of the documentary. He quotes the former United Nation spokesman in Sri Lanka and author of "The Cage" while
pointing out facts in the video.
I liked how the creator not only used facts that he found on online and books but he also went to Sri Lanka personally to hear the experiences of the Tamil people of the North to create this documentary. He had all used some of his own b roll that he had filmed when visiting the country. As an audience I was able to see the both sides of the event that took place, his points seemed non bias and I would say a great video to watch to get an understanding of the event. The music chose fit very well with type the things he was talking about and he also added a song that one of the locals had created when he had visited the North.
When I first heard the term "civil war" I was very confused as none of the wars labeled civil were ever a civilised war, know after doing some research Ive found out that the word civil does form the Latin word civilis, which means "relating to citizens". So essentially civil war is the war between citizens of the same country. This term sounds very contradictory to modern English, also I think for someone who is encountering the term "civil war" for the first time, without knowing the historical background it would be very misleading.
Research Review Secondary Analysis
User @alexfinch1007 has left he comment on the documentary that I had analysed, he
expressed his opinion on the video. He says how hr feels that the documentary wont go
the audience that is being referenced in the video, the people that actually suffered through
the time period of when the civil war. From this comment you can tell that this audience is
someone that has great interest in this topic.
User @SocialStudiess is clearly not from Sri Lanka and this documentary has taught him
something new that he has never known before. So this documentary is truly educational in
a sense that it tell us the past of Sri Lanka and how it is now currently. From this comment
you can tell that others other then Sri Lankans have been watching this documentary and
that it is a source to educate the audience and also have non bias take on the topic when
hearing the information for the first time.
How to Frame an Interview Subject
During this lesson we essentially went out as groups to experiment with different frames when in interviewing people, especially for a documentary. When borrowing equipment we weren't able to get out a clip on microphone, so we had to work with the hand held mic that has to be held really close to the person speaking to be able to catch the audio. So generally interviews in documentary the mic would not be in frame, the interview might seem more like a conversation. As this lesson was for framing the interview this wont be any problem to the task.
The subject is facing to the side while being in the middle of the frame, this helps the interview look more like a conversation with the interviewee.
Photography: Week 2
For this week I experimented with different lighting, zooming as well as using colour gel sheets to change the aesthetic of the picture. I had used a backdrop from the studio to lay on the table to put the objects from the art department. These objects included animal skulls, sea shells and such other objects.
These are some of the picture I took on the lesson, as I was experimenting not all the picture turned out the best. But these are some of the pictures I liked the most out of all the picture I had taken.
Ethical Filmmaking in Documentary
Ethics is what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. This term is applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles.
Ethical Dilemma
Consent- Did all the participants fully agree to be filmed?
Representation- Are people shown fairly or stereotypically
Manipulation- Has the editing changed the meaning?
Privacy- Are you filming sensitive situation carefully?
Impact - Could the film harm someone's safety or reputation
This is an episode from the television series called "Who Is America?" which aired on Showtime in the US with Cohen who is in a disguise as a Israeli man and interviews people who don't know his true identity. So even thought the people in the video have given consent to be filmed, they haven't been told the full truth that they are being interviewed by someone else and that they are technically being mocked. The character Cohen is disguised as is fairly stereotypical and is represented to the audience as someone that is funny and full of humor
I don't think there has been any manipulation during the editing f this video, the participants being interviewed sound very honest and proud of what they are saying about guns in America. When thought at first I thought that some of the interviews were scripted. The only manipulation that might happening during the making of this video is that the producers are faking there identity and there believes to make the participants thing that they all have the same views as them.
Throughout this video there has been sensitive and controversial conversation. As the whole series is about a sense of mocking the people that have opinions like allowing children to have access to guns, they haven't covered all the sensitive situations that accrued during this video.
Group Campaign - Brainstorming
In the group we were set up with we discussed what option we could go with for the campaign. In my group we had to ideas for a campaign. It was homelessness and female rights in Afghan. Then we made a mind map with what we knew about the topic and things that we could research about. This helped us decide what campaign we wanted to choose.
As a group we decided that our campaign will be about the female rights in Afghanistan and especially about the regression of the rights for women in the country.
We also thought of some names that would have a strong sense understanding will the audience of the campaign. Finally we came up with the name 'Echo Her Voice' as the women there don't have freedom of speech, something that is a essential and is basic human rights.
For the logo of this campaign we thought that including the national flower of Afghanistan. Something that would be resemble the campaign and help it to be easily recognisable when came across in everyday. We did a few sketches for the logo collectively with the name of the campaign included.
Primary Research: Campaign
This is the survey I had for our campaign primary research:
This survey will help us understand how much our target audience knows about this situation and if they are wiling to educate themselves on it and how they would do so and if they are willing to make a change by doing so and help spread awareness to those that might not know.
I'll be waiting for some more responses before I start analysing the responses.
We had 18 responses from this survey we got some what similar amount of males and females who did the survey but the age range of people were only under 18 to 24 year old's. We could have opinions from other older demographic but this is what we were able to get. Most of our participants have some knowledge of the situation in Afghanistan, and 28.9% of people were not sure or had no idea of the situation before this survey. Most of our participants weren't aware of this situation, so this helps us understand that our audience would have to be knowledge about this and make them more aware of this situation.
Group Campaign - Presentation Preparation
In our group we had to make a presentation on the idea we have for our campaign, this included us talking about what the campaign is about, our primary and secondary research, what our goal is and how we aim to achieve it, the message we choose to tell through our campaign, what each individual will be making towards the campaign, campaign to ours that does something similar.
We managed to take turns speaking while doing our presentation and went through all the relevant points so that everyone listening could understand what we intended to do. I thought that everyone understood what our intentions were with this campaign.
Secondary Research: Campaign
The Taliban is a group that emerged in 1994. Many of their members were former Mujahedeen fighters who had been trained in Pakistan during the Afghanistan's civil war in the 80s and the 90s. Their aim when coming into terms country was to create it into an Islamic state and ruled in Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. So since then the group has become notorious for their human rights abuses, especially towards women and girls.
From the research I've done on the mater in Afghanistan, I know that about it's been around four years since the Taliban have taken over Afghanistan. This is the second time they have seized power in the country. In Afghanistan women even struggle to get healthcare, since the Taliban has takeover, there has been discrimination that keeps women and girls from getting the care they need. Since women can't get treatment from male doctors and there aren't many female doctors it's difficult for women to get treatment. In December 2024, the DFA blocked women from studying medicine or midwifery, closing even the one chance they had to be help care providers and receivers. Girls education in Afghanistan officially finishes on their last day of grade six. Since September 2021, the Taliban has banned girls from secondary school. The rates of early, forced and child marriage remain high and these rates are increasing.
Campaign for Barnardo's Giving Children Back Their Future - Secondary Research
The Barnardo's campaign shares a message about neglected children and they help their platform to help those children in need, so that they can grow into an adult who isn't damaged.
I think the campaign has a powerful message and its posters were consistent and considerate of the audience and how it will impact them. As this might be a sensitive topic to some they showcased the topic with lots of empathy.
All the campaign posters have the same type of layout and similar stories and the same type of structure for them. They all contain a child that has difficult childhoods that have grown up into adults and are doing much better because of Barnardo's. The pictures of the children in the posters have have the same type of lighting and there's always a child that that loos distressed and venerable. The type face and the size of the font is the same throughout every poster
I would also say that the campaign in very inclusive of both genders and all races have they have tried to include all types of children in the poster to be inclusive and to show that they help all types of children.
Echo Her Voice - Campaign Logo
This is the logo we created to use for our campaign but we figured that the spacing between the image and the title is way further down and the glob is showing the wrong side of the world, and has no sight of Afghanistan. So we decided to change the logo so it would be much more recognisable. While also keeping in the some of the same elements like the same font and the hands holding something. This helps audience show that this campaign is here to help and support those who need the support and extra hand.
This is the logo we have finalised with, it has the glob changed into a the flag of Afghanistan and the title of the campaign has been split to the top and the bottom of the logo. This makes each individual word much easier to read and makes it stand out to those who are reading it.
The logo design was discussed among our whole group and the draft was created by Dovydas and the final changes to the log was made by Ali.
Echo Her Voice
I've started to make a poster for our campaign, using adobe photoshop
Echo Her Voice - Poster
This is what I have worked on for the first poster for the campaign, I used photoshop to create this poster and also borrowed the main image from the internet.
Campaign Poster
This the poster I made for my campaign,
Planning
We planned that each person in the group will create their own product for the campaign. This was done so that we can help share awareness of the situation and encourage change by making audiences more aware and reflective of the issue. Each individuals product supports the overall message of the campaign while still communicating it in different ways.
Evaluation
For my product for our campaign I have made a poster and the main message to the audience is woman are in desperate need to be heard and that educating yourself and others on this situation is really important. I think I could have added more information on the poster to make it more clear art the women in Afghan and also made the font much bolder to make it standout to the audience.
When creating this poster I wanted the audience to feel a sense of responsibility to make good change and feel the need to educate themselves and others they know. I used Adobe photoshop when creating this poster and I used the masking tool to cut out the main image I have used in the poster.
Overall I think this was a good experience to create something on Adobe Photoshop its self as I am not as familiar with is as I am with other Adobe softwares.
Documentary - Brainstorming
These are the topic ideas that we thought of when brainstorming.
- school life
- bullying
- coco melon- colour
- anti social
- chemicals in cosmetics
- harmful toys
- racism
- over population
- financial struggles and having children
- minimum social interaction
- censorship
- media vs AI
- tunnel vision
- dependency on AI
- male depression
- cancel culture
- Internet drama
- performative men/women
- snoring
The idea that stood out to us the most was performative men and women.
Performative Men/Women Primary Research
In this lesson we made sure to do as much as research as possible so that we understood the term "performative man" and how others made sense of the same term. We all have to do individual primary research so we decided that we would all collectively work together to make four types of primary research. So we individually prepared questions for our own type of research and then compared them so that the questions could all be different so that we don't collective the same type of answers. Then we eliminated some questions that felt to repetitive and changed some to sound more specific to our type of research. In our group I am doing survey type research, Victoria and Dayo would be doing focus groups and Aryan will be doing vox pop research.
We filmed the first focus group video and used two cameras, had two types of shots for this focus group. One was a wide shot that had all the participants in frame. The second camera was a close up and we manually moved the camera on the tripod so that we can capture the participants when they were speaking. Using this footage us four will be making our own edit and will be using them in our documentary.
We had to film the vox pop twice as the first time we filmed it we had accidentally filmed it in slow motion so we used this as a experience to always check the setting of the camera before filming and always reviewing each footage before moving on to the next one.
These are the questions I asked in my survey and the results I got from them:
Three Point Lighting
In this lesson I worked with my documentary group to do experiment with three point lighting. We used two subjects for both soft and hard lighting to see how it affects different skin tones and different heights. For both the subject we had to change the lighting to achieve the same lighting on the other subject.
This is the presentation we made for our documentary, we explained the meaning of performative men for those who don't know the meaning.
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