Development

We have ONCE again decided to completely change our idea and venture away from the interview concept. I for one always wanted to do this because I thought that our questions we rather pointless and trivial to networks. Not only that but I did not want to confront random strangers on the street. It was risky, and unreliable. After doing a few tests with students and lecturers in the class we found that the answers they were giving were extremely similar.

We completely changed our direction into a short film, (which is what we wanted to do in the beginning I might add). The only trouble was coming up with a witty story that was both artistic and relevant to the topic of networks. Coming up with ideas proved to be our downfall. It seemed that everyone was on a different page as to what they wanted to create. I had a firm vision for what the film should be like but I felt that influences from other people in the group lead me astray and away from my vision.

I found that our workflow was extremely poor. We literally could not stay on task for more than 20 minutes without going completely off topic. I put this down to the fact that we all got along together TOO well. There wasn't really anyone in the group who made a stand and put pressure on everyone to get work done. We had discussed concepts for half a semester and researched many aspects of the money network however I think this was our main problem. The money network was so vast that our minds were scattered with thoughts and ideas that formed a jigsaw puzzle that did not fit together. However this greatly influenced the second half of the semester because we recycled many ideas that helped develop the final film. For example. We experimented with me sitting on the side of the footpath on queen street pretending to be a homeless man for 10 minutes while people walked  passed. I felt embarrassed and ashamed, feelings that I haven't felt in a long time. This influenced the tunnel scene in the film for example where people are judging the drug addict. It made me truly aware of the opinions that people have other other people both positive or negative. It gave me a new perspective to live a different life influenced  by money.

Every single time we would meet as a group we would leave at the end of the day agreeing on a certain idea but then the next day people would change it. And others would forget completely what we were talking about not having documented it in their workbooks. Eventually we decided to start from scratch to make sure we were all on the same page. I made a a list of every single emotion that I could relate to money such as hatred, love, jealously etc. From there we started piecing together certain events that could link together. After researching a few short films and examining their contents we eventually decided to go along with a cyclic style of short film. Where as the money would start at one point and eventually make its way back to its origin. By doing this it really showed the network within money.

However the filming was not very smooth at the beginning. We ran into many problems. The reason being is because we had not fully developed the story and were shooting the beginning of the film without knowing where the scenes were leading. This meant that most of the footage we shot (although very nicely done) was useless and was discarded. However this stage of development was not all a great loss. we discovered that we all were terrible actors. And because our film was aiming to highlight the emotions that people feel because of money, this was not ideal. Not only that but we needed actors for our film and we were not sure if we could find anyone this late in the semester to help us film. Because of these factors we decided that it would be the best option to shoot in first person for most of the film. It also allows the viewers to put themselves in the shoes of the actors and feel what they feel in their situations.

Ideally we would have wanted to use a wide angle lense on the camera but none of us wanted to spend 250$ on a lens. After looking at a few home-made fps 'Call of Duty videos' we decided to build a rig using a helmet so that we could mount the camera on it. After drilling a few holes and lathering a bolt in epoxy glue we finally finished our masterpiece. However we soon realised that we created a few problems for ourselves.
1) You could barely see where you were going while wearing it.
2) Without a wide angle lens it was almost impossible to see your body and arms when looking downwards, you had to physically move your hand in front of the camera to see anything. This made picking up objects extremely difficult.
3) Footage was also fairly shaky, but at the same time this shakiness gave a the film a 'feel' to it that you were looking through the eyes of the character.

All of the filming itself was shot over about a week and a half. Prior to this we travelled around to different locations to confirm what would be appropriate. But with all honesty it was not a very well orchestrated method of planning. I was loosing hope in the project looking at the footage we were accumulating. I felt as though we were extremely rushed in shooting. For example, in the dairy scene that I organised we could only shoot a few shoots because the shop owner did not want us in the shop for too long. This meant that re shooting the bad shots was out of the question. However we had a plan to overcome this during the editing by using the 'blink' transition effect to cut out the bad features of the film. During this time period Supa was filming and directing majority of the shots as he had experience with camera work in the past. However we all played a vital role in this stage of the project as we all gave input as to how things could be improved.

Experimentation

I experimented with a range of techniques for the interface well in advance of the final production. One of the techniques that I liked a lot was the chalk outline technique that I learnt from youtube. It gave a really nice effect and I could use it to show the transfer of money however I knew I would encounter many problems in the process. For one thing, you had to draw everything frame by frame which was extremely tedious and time consuming. We were shooting 50fps on the camera so this meant that it would be next to impossible to actually use this technique.

Questions!

What do you do? And how would you describe youself?
-By adding in this question we really connect with the person and begin to understand their answers


What does five dollars mean to you? / What does fifty thousand dollars mean to you?
Change: If you were given 50$ how would you use it?


Do you think the amount of money you have affects the person you are today?
Change: How has money affected the person that you are today?




Have you ever judged someone that you assumed to have more or less money than you? If so, how did this change your perspective of them?
Change: remove it


New Question: What do you think of the financial system put in place?




How has money effect your relationships with other people? Negatively or positively?
(Optional Question) How much money do you earn a year?
Change: How has money affected your relationships with other people?

We have decided today that we need to change and develop some of our questions. I suggested that we incorporate questions that delve deeper into peoples personal lives. Most of the answers we were given were very short as people were being put on the spot. I feel that we should alter how we go about confronting the questions of money to avoid the "yes" or "no" answers. I also feel that we should start by asking the person briefly who they are. Perhaps a quick overview describing a bit of their background. This would bring greater understanding of their answers and allow audiences to connect with the viewer on a higher level.

I came to this conclusion from watching the 'Talking Heads' documentary which explores peoples lives using a few well worded questions.

The money network

We have spent most of our time refining our ideas and developing a concept over the first half of the semester. In this project we aim to reveal the fact that money is not just a form of currency. With it, is carried a vast amount of emotions and connections that affect all of society. It is a powerful force that has the ability to rift entire communities and brings to life every human emotion available to us, ranging from hatred to something as strong as love. Not only is money a network that provides a sense of order to civilization but it is also a key driving force to our cultures, behaviors and most importantly to our social network. In a sense, the money network acts as the spark that ignites the connections between people revealing the hidden network that both bonds us together and drives us apart as a society. To show this fact we want to conduct a series of interviews with an wide range of different demographic groups, ranging from children to the elderly and document their views and opinions of how the money network effects them both behaviorally and emotionally. We want to use such a range of people because we believe it will reveal the fact that the view of money is changing over time. We wish to inspect how peoples perspective of how money effects them as they progress through their life. By interviewing people of all different backgrounds and social classes we want to further convey the flexibility of how it affects interactions within our communities.


We really want to explore how different demographic groups view money. We wish to do this through the use of small interviews where questions will be asked about the effect money has on their lives. Using this information we will then construct our own artistic view of how money controls society and how we interact with each other.


We are still experimenting with questions, but here are some of the primary things we will be asking people:


What does five dollars mean to you? / What does fifty thousand dollars mean to you?
Do you think the amount of money you have affects the person you are today?
Have you ever judged someone that you assumed to have more or less money than you? If so, how did this change your perspective of them?
Has does money effect your relationships with other people? Negatively or positively?
(Optional Question) How much money do you earn a year?

We have spent much of our time trying to debate a concept, in the end we decided to focus on money. However we found ourselves going around in circles and confusing each other every time we began research. I knew that what we were doing was heading down the wrong track but I thought it would be a strategy of exploring the network more in depth. The problem was that we were too narrow minded with our concept of money, and the network was far too complex to do a video on. We needed to condense our findings down to a point and focus our attention on that aspect.

From the very start of the project we also hinted at wanting to do a video, however I personally wanted to keep our options open for us to explore while researching our network. I felt as though we were all focusing on the final product and jumping ahead rather than developing our idea gradually. However we addressed this issue. I thought about ideas such as exploring the concept of money within video games. Perhaps designing our own currency to be used within a game much like World of Warcraft's "auction house," that uses the games gold in order to trade items. I felt as though money within the real world was too broad of a topic. Looking back I feel as though we should have pushed our boundaries more.

After a talk with Zoe, we were advised to watch a documentary called "The Lift." In this documentary peoples interactions and lives were studied while they went up and down a lift to their apartment block. It was amazing to see how the people change over time as they gradually grew to know the man filming in the lift. You felt a connection to these people and you only saw them once or twice a day. I thought it might be interesting to explore a scene similar to this. Perhaps film within my old work "a dairy in St Heliers" and film interactions between customers to explore the relations generated between the clerk and the buyer.

Another idea I had was to develop a currency system that worked within BCT. I  have had a few issues with the amount of teaching going on and having to learn everything myself. I remember being told in first year that we were chosen for the course based on our skill sets and interests, some people

Another concept was exploring what the world would be like if we did not have a currency. Could it be that money was created because of mankind's selfish nature? Was it necessary to make the world operate the way it does? In changing peoples outlook on life, could we change the need for money? It seemed to me that money had changed the way humans think over time. Gradually we have become more individual rather than unified. People no longer see beauty in the world, they simply see a means to gain profit and to tower over the rest of society. These questions heavily contributed to our final concept of how money affects peoples emotions, behavior and perception of the world around them.

Final presentation

Heres the link to my flash website:

http://www.wix.com/nikhodgson/studio2

For some reason the wix website is no longer running and has been down for quite some time. Im not sure if the server has shut down or not, perhaps it will be reactivated. In the event that it does feel free to check it out. :)