- Writing Samples
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Client Project Reflection
I think a lot of us found the client project to be an experience much different from anything we’d done before. There weren’t really any set guidelines on what we’d produce or how we’d produce it. We were able to develop our own projects under the umbrella of the larger project. Obviously, this was a learning experience for all of us, and there were plenty of kinks along the way, but I think for the most part we all performed very well and I’m proud of what we accomplished as a group.
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Painting Story Production Notes
Working on the painting to life film was a different experience for me than the genre film. On the genre film, I was much more involved in pre-production, specifically writing the story and developing the concept. This time, because we each wrote our own stories, I had no part in coming up with the one we settled on, so I had to assume other, more technical responsibilities, which were more foreign to me than writing a story. Still, though, it was an interesting experience. Having to think about the individual shots and how they were filmed was new for me, so it was sort of enlightening. I wasn’t under the impression that film-making was easy, per se, but I think I had a different idea of how things were done.
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Photo Essay Production Report
Though we took the photographs independently, the experience of the photo essay was quite collaborative in nature. Taking advantage of the technology available to us, we kept in constant communication and worked in innovative ways to come to a consensus as a group. At essentially every step along the way, the entire group had a hand in making the decisions, from the word chosen to how it was interpreted in the pictures themselves.
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Pulitzer Photo Analysis
Immediately, Stanley J. Forman’s “Fire at Malborough Street” elicits a visceral response absent of any real or perceived context. We aren’t sure exactly what has happened in the picture, and the face of the child does little to help. It is unclear whether this is a moment of terror or elation; whether the people are in danger or not. Still, the photograph is appealing not only because its story is intriguing but because it has the sense of a moment suspended in time, a lack of gravity that can only be captured in still photography. The subjects appear to be floating in midair rather than hurtling toward a violent fate. On an entirely superficial visual level, the image resonates because it seems to represent a moment of peace amidst chaos, an otherwise impossible look at a dramatic occurrence.
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Photo Essay Critical Analysis
The photograph of carrots is notable for its use of contrast, symmetry, and repetition. The dark, saturated orange and green of the carrots almost violently pop out from the flat white background. This contrast highlights the colors of the carrots in a way that makes them appear more bold and graphic than they would have had they been forced to compete with other objects for attention. Though the image is not exactly symmetrical, the formation of the carrots is close enough to it that it creates a certain balance to the image, an arrangement that heightens the everyday subject matter to artful proportions. The outline of the carrots almost seems to form a large oval, which unifies the multiple pieces into a composition that reads as resolved and thoughtful. The arrangement also creates repetition, as the bottoms of the carrots are all nearly the same shape, but adds variety and creates visual interest through the diversity of lengths and placement of the tops. Interestingly, the composition works not only for its unity but for its calculated asymmetry. Though the pieces are arranged to give us a clear view of unified whole, the slight asymmetry adds an equally important touch to the success of the photograph.
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Ad Analysis
The Pantene advertisement I chose is remarkable for its simplicity. It employs somewhat of a minimalistic approach, attracting attention by requiring very little of it. Perhaps the design element it uses most notably, then, is positive and negative space. As Robin Williams puts it in The Non-Designer’s Design Book, paying for less when you could be getting more is a seemingly counterintuitive but surprisingly effective approach. In the example of the Pantene ad, the image is dominated by negative or white space, instantly drawing our eye to the sleek form of the blow-dryer, as is seemingly the aim of the company. On that note, contrast is also particularly well applied in this example. The background is an off-white color, while the image meant to capture our attention and the company’s logo are black. The logo being black amongst the other text is also an example of the power of contrast, as it distinguishes the brand from the other, less important text. Incidentally, the text is a good example of proximity. Instead of splaying the text across the image to take advantage of the space, the designer keeps everything tightly together, which both aids the minimal composition and gives us as the reader an easier job of extracting the message from what’s in front of us.
