Studio Semester 2

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Reflective of Semester 1

Reflective and Conceptual statements

Reflective Statement

So a new and exciting project for the class of BCT. The experience and group involvement of this project was much enjoyed. The task to conceive, design and create a piece of camera equipment that allows footage of auckland in means that are inaccessible by an ordinary hand held camera was a new and intimidating assignment.

We had the option of either tackling this assignment by ourselves in groups of up to 4. i chose to join a group because there is more of a combined field of creative ideas and more people to achieve construction faster. I was very pleased with my group because we all were thinking along the similar lines as to what we wanted to achieve in our construction. we were all quite thoroughly involved in the conceiving and designing stage for about 1 week because our first idea of spy glasses wasn't as original as we thought. Once we reached our extendable pole idea it was good to see our group getting thoroughly involved into the design and then right into the construction.

The construction was perhaps the best and most enjoyable part of the assignment because it involved the use of the 3D Lab and all its big and powerful machinery like the band saw and lathe. This phase was completed in parts as some of the construction required rethinking but this was expected and wasn't much of a hinderance.

The Footage perhaps the second best part of the assignment was a really enjoyable experience, by taking our equipment around the city and capturing locations that you normally couldn't capture. the interaction with the people around the city was also interesting to notice because they showed different expressions toward our project (mainly interest but there was confusion and also caution).

All in all it was a good assignment to be involved in. The group was good to be in and helped develop group co-operation and group management skills. Construction was enjoyable and helped develop knowledge in the use of equipment. Then finally the actual use of our construction was fun to see people interest towards it and the outcome of the footage.


Conceptual Statement

Flaneur... a way to explore and examine the modernity of the urban condition. The camera equipment we design and must use is both separate and part of the environment. Our extendable pole can gain access into areas normally not seen and gives us an experience through the interaction of the people passing by.

We gained our ideas through the imagination of the extension of the ordinary field of vision from the accessible positions of a normal human's capabilities. By imagining what and where we cant access we gained a field of knowledge towards a bunch of different devices. by breaking down certain limits of the ordinary human public and physical access throughout the city we came up with ideas like 'sewer and drain access', 'height access', 'rotation' and 'small, compact area access.'

Public interaction and the physical shape and form were also limits of our creation. The size and shape had to fit with gravity (weight), material (strength, lightness and affordability), and accessibility (size, ease of use and public access/transportation to areas).

Our extendable Pole idea came from all the high up areas all throughout the city. The upper rows of windows, views over walls, views down holes/drains, views over balconies and ledges and views from the ground upwards, the ability to place our camera elevated about 4 meters off the ground gains us access to these areas. Our pole represents that of both covert, stealth and accessibility, this is shown by the access to areas normally tucked away and hidden from the public of auckland e.g. second story windows, over walls and if the access is there; through windows. by exploring the areas of auckland normally inaccessible it shows the true auckland.

The footage of the dog can also represent the view of auckland streets through the eyes of the animal. this was displayed by the footage above the dogs head and then by the footage of the camera a couple inches off the ground. the low angle and glitchy speed up speeds represents the small and energy engulfed actions of the puppy chiwuahwuah.

The pole is basically an extension of the human arm to gain access to areas in a 360 degree range and an extension of +2.5 meters.

Editing

After the filming was done and we had captured all the footage i believe i required we eventually got down to the editing. The editing I found very easy because i have used final cut pro a few times in the past for my Visual Arts short film. I decided to show two different abilities that the camera has, so i used footage from down low and near the ground and i used footage from up high facing downwards. This is to show a range of the cameras abilities. I decided against effects because i couldn’t really find any that would suit my boom pole idea. The simpler a film is edited the more the audience will pay attention to whats on the screen not what its doing.


There were almost two stories to the film, the first was following a little Chihuahua dog around the streets and the other captured high up views of the city. The majority of the footage was sped up in order to make the film appear less slow and to get out more examples of the different views we captured.

I decided against using allot of effects in the film because i was trying to portray the equipments versatility and wanted the audiences attention more focused on 'how i got that shot' than 'how that effect was made'. the only effects i used were fade out and fade in effects used at the start and end of the film, this effect i feel is a good transition from menu to movie then movie to menu (this had no real relation to the meaning of our pole).

Filming the Sreets

When it came down to the filming side of our assignment i was quite excited to explore the city and see the reactions the people get when we use our device. Our departure lead us down queen street, up Victoria street, back down Queens around Britomart, then up Queens, around Albert park and the chancery then back up to AUT. other routes were taken but that was the main path we took.
The filming was a very interesting experience, during our endeavors i really began to experience cinematic flaneur because it forced us to look at people and places we have never really taken notice of before. There was allot of public intrigue towards our camera equipment, we got stares questions and casual onlookers. I believe the public also helped us with experiencing cinematic flaneur because a city isn't a city with out people. We managed to get some very good footage over ledges, up into windows, down low on the ground and up high in the air. For a Farm boy i really got to experience allot more of the city than i usually do.


Walking the streets with our piece of equipment our task forced us to explore the areas you don't normally see, I wanted to exploit areas like second level windows. These areas are quite intriguing because you orignally have no idea of what they will look like.

Construction

It was time to focus on obtaining the materials we required for the construction of our boom camera. We went for a search around K road and Queens street to have a look at items like mic boom stands and goose necks, second hand shops had nothing of the supplies we required so we decided to search the more expensive shops.

We hit up surplustronics and found a desktop mic $25 stand to supply the pivot point and a goose neck $9 to give the camera more manipulation of the camera angle, this project was starting to cost a bit of money! lucky there's 3 of us! I also had the advantage of having a Father who is a rigger and a stunt man who has a shed full of harnesses ropes and support devices so i borrowed a old bungee jump harness off him. Also the bonus of living on a farm gave me access too the hordes of crap left behind from farming tools and structures so i gained an old glass house washing boom made out of aluminum, this extended up to 5.5m! We also checked the scraps bin in the 3D lab and found a perfect aluminum plate, steel plate, steel tubing, rivets and screws (these all were very well fitting).

The construction phase went quite smoothly. It almost seemed to fit together like a dream on the first day, the poles were easily cut to the right lengths (1.2m, 1.1m, 1m), the plate was easily cut and bent to the right fit with holes drilled into it for the straps. The next day we hit a few snags but nothing serious, the plate needed to be bigger so we had to redo it, and we chose to screw the alloy and steel plates instead of rivet them. Welding went all good, Stephen done all the welding to save us time. We finished off by making stoppers for the sliding poles and putting on the support brace on the largest pole. The last day we visited the wet lab to apply our primer thenour gloss black spray paint to our equipment, this was done to achieve a better finish in the appearance. It was thoroughly enjoyable using the 3D lab and 'creating' and bringing to life the idea we conceived and designed, seeing the end result was very satisfying. It was exciting using all the big machines like the lathe and the band saw!


We really enjoyed the work space and really worked well together in the 3D lab, I found our ideas were very similar and easy to relate to.

The BOOM!

Now onto the design and construction of this piece of equipment, we wanted to have 2-3 1000cm long poles that slot into each other that could extend from one another and then somehow fasten it to our body with a pivoting device to adapt the height. We had planned to have the poles coming over the right shoulder and fastened to a semi circular brace that comfortably fitted the shoulder. this would be a good point to support the weight because it uses the spines curvature as a shock absorber. So I had a look around to see whats out there, and found this Website



These extendable booms came either by them selves or on tripod stands but our original plan was to somehow attach it to the body, so we decided to stick with that. by fastening the boom to the body it becomes more of an extension of the body and helps to develop the experience of flaneur, the user has more direct control to the location its placed and the areas it can access. The boom will create a unique birds eye view/high angled view and will show areas up high and over walls that normally couldn't be captured.

The materials we would require-

-3x either square or cylinder aluminum piping, this would be fastened into 1x larger tubing which is then welded which is then fastened to the pivot point

-1x pivot point (something to adjust the height/extrusion of the pipes, perhaps from a old mic boom.

-1x Steel either square or cylinder piping to attach pivot point to steel plate.

-1x Steel plate to rivet or screw to an aluminum plate.

-1x Aluminum Plate to be comfortably fitted around the shoulder area and strapped or harnessed on.

-1x Harness/Strapping to attach the steel plate firmly and comfortably on the body.

The reason for the chose of aluminum parts was they offered a lighter weight to steel which put less stress on the structure and less strain on the harness and finally the body. This had its down turns because the poles were more affected by wind and movement also it cannot be welded.

There was a later decision to replace the position of the brace to the stomach area, this provided a easier access to the manipulation of the boom handle. it also because easier to adjust and strap to the body.

Extended Pole + Pivot Point 3D view

Contracted Pole + Pivot Point 3D view

Plate 3D view