Trip to mohatta palace

To make us practice on our analysis, our Media teacher took us to the Mohatta palace. We were shown a lot of brilliantly made paintings and sculptures by the Pakistani artists, each work having its in depth meaning. Our task was to choose one piece that we like and answer a set of questions related to that piece. It was certainly difficult to choose an artwork as everything had many different hidden meanings if seen from various perspectives. Finally I choose a simple sculpture of a baby made of Fiberglass.


That work was by Hamra Abbas, a Pakistani artist. Below is the link to her website that include some of her work.

http://www.hamraabbas.com

Below are the answers to the questions related to that art work.

What is my first response to the work?

Given the size and color, I though it is another ordinary sculpture yet it connoted something fearless as we see a baby holding two snakes.It also portrayed a stereotype pf make dominance as a baby boy was sculpted.

What is the title? Does it help to illuminate the work?

The title is "Its a boy!" and it shows the sculpture in whole new light. The artist shows the mind and attitude of a stereotypical society that give more importance to a baby boy and has greater expectations from him. This also shows the low opinion of a society towards the baby girl.

What do the clothing, furnishing, accessories and facial expression to the setting personality?

The baby is sitting bare holding two snakes which in a similar fashion Hercules holds to destroy the snakes. The Boys expression is innocent and child like and here we can perceive that great expectations are made from a boy right from the day he is born while he is unaware and too young to understand the importance of responsibilities.

What is the focus of the composition?

The focus is on two snakes held to be destroyed.

What is the purpose of this piece?

The purpose is to show that how ordinary it is when in a conservative society, a baby boy is automatically seen as a savior, indestructible, and a messiah who will help them get rid of their distresses.

What is the medium? Does the medium has significance?

The medium used is a fiberglass and that enhances the purpose of the sculpture. Fiberglass is a strong material and difficult to break.

What effects does the color have. 

The color is a bright and gay and the texture is smooth which makes the sculpture look more catchy yet serene when one looks at it.

Is the size of the piece important?

The size of the picture is huge which further elaborates the huge expectations of the society.

An exercise to learn more of photoshop

For a Name fest, Arif and I prepared a logo on a Photoshop. Name fest is a competition where we had to think of a name and prepare a logo that describes that name. This was a good exercise to practice Photoshop as now after making a logo, we are more familiar with its elements and can innovate using different applications. Arif came with the word 'sense of Aesthetics ' and we felt it can be quite challenging and interesting to reflect it in a logo. We planned on using as little elements as possible as we did not want to overcrowd the logo and also make to look understandable. The elements were collected from google and after cutting and pasting, we made a diagram as it is in the right. 

Now after making a rough form, we had to change its appearance and make it look more real and elegant. The straight paper was transformed and it was made to look like it is kept on a desk from a persons perspective. To make it look more realistic, drop shadow effect was given from the blending options. After making the slight adjustments on the positioning of the elements, we desaturated the diagram and changed the hue to give it an ancient look. From the filters, brush strokes were used on all the elements.To add more realism, we made duplicate layer of quill and ink and with the gradient tool, filled the shape with black color gradually lightening from right to left, than rotated and changed their shapes to make them look like shadows. The text written was in white color and emboss and drop shadow was used from the blending options for the text to give it a 3D effect. Using a black pencil tool we made a small line emerging out of the quill tip to make it look like a pen mark.To make it look more cultured and sophisticated we added the translation of the word in Urdu and similar effects from the blending effects were used for it.. Our final product looks like this: 

Photographing using different filters

Picture taken outdoor using blue cellphone paper

In todays class session we used different coloured cellophane and butter papers to create differrent effects. we also used shiny papers to bounce off the light on the subjects face. More experimenting was done outdoors using sunlight and indoors using camera flash lights etc.

Shooting second day

We took a couple of shots of Fatmah getting ready for her school today. The shots are of her quickly packing up and wearing her jacket and shoes and few shots of her quickly trying to eat her breakfast. We have taken mid shots and close ups of her getting ready in hurry and in a comical way. We are to still take shots of Fatmah waking up late, then hurrying outside to quickly gobble up her breakfast and than rush down the stairs. We changed the direction of the beds because the light did not appear that good and we had to show the morning routine so we had to use a dark room or a room with only light coming from the window. However we show that after she comes out of the bathroom she turns on the light before packing up for her school. The switch outlet shown on camera is of bathroom lights but we show Fatmah turning on the lights and than another person off the camera turns on the bedroom lights in a sync.The dark room along with the light coming through the blind did not give out that good light quality in the video that is why we had to turn on the room lights. Lights coming from the window was too bright and overshadowed the subjects face and expressions.

Shooting first day

On our first day we did not do much shooting. We just choreographed the whole act and than tested the lights and effects by taking a couple of test shots. The beds were arranged facing the door and it did not give out that good lights. We shot the first scene when the main character wakes up and realizes that she is late. The props here we used were; a stuffed doll, red comforter and shoes lying on the floor. the character is suppose to tumble off due to those shoes while rushing into the bathroom. The character is bare feet, wearing a pink night shirt with pajamas and has open and messed up hair to show that she just rolled out of the bed. The props here used describe the main protagonist's  personality as they along with the room's decor are more feminine and project and give the character of being very dainty and girlish and she also sleeps with the stuffed doll. Shoes scattered around are to show that she is usually disorganized and careless as well. When she realizes that she is late she raucously and in rapid movements dresses up which projects a wholly different mood of the video. Here we are to show her fast, reckless and less feminine and more untidy and this element is what will add humor to this scene e.g instead of looking for her lost toothbrush, she will finger brush her teeth.

Final movie shooting. first day

After finalizing the location which is Sama's house, we got on with our final shooting. First day we just choreographed the whole act and took few sample shots to check the lights. We plan to start shooting officially from tomorrow. Sama's room had twin bed, a shelf, some pillows scattered around, side table and a wall dresser. one of the main advantage we had of choosing sama's room is the space. Having more empty space for shooting and bright decor bought out really good colours.

Poster modified version

After I analysed my poster with this I found out that my poster had a couple of things missing e.g the names of the actors, the logo of the production house and the institution. Therefore made a couple of changes on the poster and this is what I ended with. The length is a bit longer than my previous poster as I had to add the name of the actors in our short preliminary exercise.

Location

Now since we all have a script therefore now we have to do is finalize a location before shooting. Fatmah's and Arif's homes are a good one hour drive and entirely in different directions therefore we thought it would be more convenient for us to shoot at Sama or my place than for us to drive there. This narrows down to Sama and my house. I thought Sama's house would be a better choice due to the arrangement of the rooms and also her bedroom has blue and white furnitures which may portray the personality well of our main character. On the left side is the picture of the hall way from the kitchen entrance. From here we can see the entrance to the bedroom on the very end. The bedroom entrance is beside the brown sofa.

Since our movie will consist of scenes in kitchen therefore I have taken couple of shot of my home kitchen to see if there is enough space to shoot a video properly.  From here we can see a corridor that leads to an exit door.

 This is a shot of the kitchen from the corridor leading to an exit. Here on the right we can also see another entrance to the hall or the drawing room

This is the shots of my bedroom. The first one is from the doorway outside the hall  The main idea is to seek as much of space as possible to make a good movie

This the flip side which is not visible form the above photo.












This shot consists of the doorway form where we enter the main hall