Final

Click here for the video

http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~hollt/autumn2011/classes/ae252/

My big idea for this project was “infinity.” Before beginning the project, I decided that showing images of space or the universe would be a great way to show that, from my perspective, space is infinite. My first idea was to create a video rather than three images.

I gained experience with making videos back in high school, so it was fun to have a reason to go and make a video again. I put a decent amount of time into the project, but I wasn’t able to render it properly. The main problem was that part of the video had a rotating earth that I made from a flat image, but no matter what output settings I used, the video always had the flat image rather than the sphere that the earth was supposed to be.

Since the video seemed to be impossible, I decided to make static images instead. I made two pictures of different aspects of space; one is similar to our solar system, while the other is a little more abstract and theoretical.

I was also able to make a video of a rotating earth, but without the other things that I had originally wanted to include in the first project design.

Even after the initial trouble, I am pretty happy with how the final project turned out. I think all the images help to show my big idea:

- Rotating earth: a continuous rotation

- Solar system: Didn’t really represent infinity by itself, but it serves as a sample of the infinitely many images that I could have made

- Space shuttle: shows a space shuttle slowly moving through various objects in space (Also includes the “0.999…”)

Overall, one of the most fascinating parts of the project for me was that there were infinitely many images I could have made.

Final - Thought Process

For the final project, I'm thinking about using "Time" as my "big idea." I'm considering using space (and objects in space, e.g., planets, comets, stars, etc.) as a way to show time. I think the best way to do the project would be making a video as opposed to making three separate images. A video could also create a type of narrative, albeit not a traditional "story," since time will be passing as the video plays.

The denotations would simply be space and the objects that are there. The connotation could be that space is timeless and infinite.

A preliminary idea that I'm thinking of is a video that starts off as a black screen, with space (with some distant stars) fading in, and then the "camera" will begin moving and events will start happening (planets, stars, comets, etc. will start appearing). The video could end with the aforementioned events coming to an end, and then fading out to black - ending the same way it began.

MP5 - Identity at Play

Click here to see the image for MP5.

For MP5, my action words were "to chip" and "to rotate." I decided to use "to rotate," and I created an animated .gif image to shop my laptop rotating. As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, my laptop is really important to me for a variety of reasons, which is why I chose it for this project as well. Initially, I had no idea how I was going to use "chip" or "rotate," but eventually I got the idea of making an animation to make it look like the laptop was rotating around an axis.

Without a better camera and tripod (and with a lack of a green screen), I wasn't able to make each image perfectly line up with the others, so the animation doesn't rotate around a completely stationary axis.

MP4 - Identity and Objects

For MP4, I decided to make myself sort of "emerging" from Mirror Lake (in a semi-liquid form). I also decided to give myself the power of being able to "shoot water." I didn't really have any specific reasons for choosing this power or location. I wanted to be "shooting" something, and I was mainly between water and fire. I ended up choosing water, and Mirror Lake seemed like a good location because I wanted to be standing in the water (see the below paragraph for the explanation of this).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the final image turned out. The rain isn't quite as good as I wanted it, and it may have been a better idea to use a darker gradient on myself rather than the bright-ish blue. I think that I edited the sky really well (it used to be a blue sky, but I wanted to make it a stormy sky). When I took the picture, I didn't get my lower legs/feet, so I think I did a pretty good job making it convincing that I am standing in the water (the left leg looks more convincing to me though).