Cross Course Collaboration: Reviewing the collaborative project
The collaboration project is now finished! It's a real shame it was only set for 2 weeks as I feel we could have developed from our moving image piece a lot... However that's not to say we can't go back to it and adjust in the future. With my reflective part of the project I have only been updating with rough detail, therefore this post is to summarise everything completed in order to get where we are today.
First of all I would like to say how much I enjoyed the experience. Even though we only had a short amount of time to work together it provided me with new friends, new experiences and new information. From day 1 we all managed to connect with one another really well, even better than I imagined.
After finding out our groups we gathered and discussed about ourselves, our interests and any particular thoughts about where to start after being given the texts to work from. Ideas went bouncing around straight away after we agreed on minimalism. We all agreed to leave it at that and come back the following day with a mood board. That way we had visual references of each individuals ideas and interests. The mood board was to present our ideas on fashion and minimalism so that the following day could bring together one concept.
So we all arrived the next day with our mood boards and again, bouncing ideas around the table. Faye and Isaac started off with the initial idea of photographing people on the basis of what they wear rather than composing their outfits. The narrative soon became fairly easy to read, where each individual could tell their story through their unique styles. And then we came down to diversity. We figured that we could create work on the basis of diversity through a minimalistic fashion context. With the time we had I felt it was a sensible idea but also effective in the sense that we had both fashion and narrative which is what the brief asked.
We continued to talk about how we would display this. Locations, people, music? For the individual styles to stand out most we needed to juxtapose them against a very basic background, such as a flat colour. Norwich was easy enough to locate ourselves around as most knew the area and there is definitely plenty of coloured walls placed near the university. Colour is an element we want to show within our stills/ footage because we want to portray diversity as a positive matter. As for people we managed to grab at least 1 person per group member giving us plenty to work with and so that everyone had contributed. Unfortunately due to activities happening during the week and general availability we were unable to work together and instead had to split the group to get the work done and so that everyone still had a role. However it turned out fine in the end, we managed to create coherent images/ footage from both days work so nothing had to be re-shot. Isaac and Faye (and maybe Kirsty?) shot the first week filming 6 individuals. Myself, Eloise and Jade shot the following Monday another 6. We began photographing around NUA and then met others at UEA. I'd never actually met Eloise or Jade before, but as soon as we got chatting again we just connected and got chatting.
During Mondays shoot we started from 11.30 and finished around 4.30pm. Everything went to plan as our models turned up and the weather was warm and bright. Looking back I think we lacked basic photographic skill by not considering any reflectors. For the times we shot and had a shadow casting across the body and face it would have been better if we'd balanced out the light. It's something that we're unable to change now but I will definitely take not in the future. We also struggled getting hold of a 5D as all were taken out of the MRC. We ended up using a 600D but none of us were completely sure about certain features on the camera so it took time to figure that out. Luckily to begin with we had plenty of time to fiddle with this so nothing was delayed or rushed during the day. As well as filming we were also in charge of getting the stills. Again I felt we lacked basic photographic skill by only shooting similar to what we had already captured on the footage. I think a sense of panic overran us as we were just making sure we had enough footage for Kirsty to play around with. If I was to go back I would definitely get some close ups of the details of fashion individuals were wearing.
Once everyone had the footage we sent it across for Kirsty for her to edit. We then needed to consider sound. Eloise offered to put together the music due to her personal interest outside of university. It was a great way to promote herself not only for business but also future collaboration projects. Faye thought about adding in a voice over of individuals describing their fashion and who influences their style.
After receiving the email to clarify how we were presenting our work, I offered to put together the Instagram page. I use Instagram on a day-to-day basis for not only my personal use but also somewhere for me to document my photographic practice. I feel it's one of the biggest platforms to do so and its straight forward to do so. I enjoy using Instagram and creating themes therefore I wanted to do this. Everyone seemed happy enough for me to do so, and I constantly asked for feedback and any additional images they felt should be put into it. When coming down to a name, no one gave much input so I took it off my own back and came up with Dvrsty. It is read in the most minimal way which I thought fed in well with the minimalism we were going for. The narrative was all about diversity and individuals express themselves through their unique styles so it suited our work for me.
Everything came together very quickly as everyone took their roles and completed what they had to do without having to badger them. Sometimes it was difficult getting in touch with people to let them know change in plans but each time everyone was understanding and agreed with whatever the outcome.
I would definitely collaborate and especially with this group of people again. Not everyone you meet will you necessarily get along with but luckily we seemed to bond very well.
Once everyone had the footage we sent it across for Kirsty for her to edit. We then needed to consider sound. Eloise offered to put together the music due to her personal interest outside of university. It was a great way to promote herself not only for business but also future collaboration projects. Faye thought about adding in a voice over of individuals describing their fashion and who influences their style.
After receiving the email to clarify how we were presenting our work, I offered to put together the Instagram page. I use Instagram on a day-to-day basis for not only my personal use but also somewhere for me to document my photographic practice. I feel it's one of the biggest platforms to do so and its straight forward to do so. I enjoy using Instagram and creating themes therefore I wanted to do this. Everyone seemed happy enough for me to do so, and I constantly asked for feedback and any additional images they felt should be put into it. When coming down to a name, no one gave much input so I took it off my own back and came up with Dvrsty. It is read in the most minimal way which I thought fed in well with the minimalism we were going for. The narrative was all about diversity and individuals express themselves through their unique styles so it suited our work for me.
Everything came together very quickly as everyone took their roles and completed what they had to do without having to badger them. Sometimes it was difficult getting in touch with people to let them know change in plans but each time everyone was understanding and agreed with whatever the outcome.
I would definitely collaborate and especially with this group of people again. Not everyone you meet will you necessarily get along with but luckily we seemed to bond very well.
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