Digital media concepts workshop, reflections on the practice of Sarah Nesteruk

Sarah's interest is the use of a publishing platform called "persona" at the moment which she has found through the active engagement of a website for artists known as the cargo collective.  Within this new "persona" platform, is essentially an even easier way to make up a website from scratch, by using existing templates that are taken from successful sites that are already established. With this new tool, you can set up a website as quickly as the task to create a simple PowerPoint presentation.

1) What follows is an exciting excursion into the use of digital media and in particular the application by Adobe, After Effects And Photoshop. Sarah is interested in the relationship between ourselves and our practice.

2) the question is, how do we express ourselves in the "modern" technology based on the "digital age"?

[For further explanation, go to www.facts.persona.co.production.go]

We carried out a simple exercise that utilised this new persona tool by asking ourselves to simple questions;
A) what is the easiest thing that I can say about myself in three words?
B) how can I express this in three frames?

So after about five minutes of deliberation and procrastination, I thought of three representations of myself as 1). Artist. 2). Creator. 3). Thinker.

I then used Photoshop to create a 16 x 9 aspect ratio web-based image set up as a width of 1920 pixels times 1080 pixels at 25 frames per second. At 72 dots per inch (i.e. this is set up as a custom parameter as film and video)

Potentially what we were about to do was to create a 72 dots per inch, RGB/Adobe colour palette flashing animation. It was pointed out to take care with the frequency of the flashing images as it has been thought in the past that these might, at certain frequencies induce epilepsy in people that are more susceptible to such attacks.

[For further reading view the work by Prof Harding "On Visual Perception and Epilepsy"].


Once these three images were set up in Photoshop and named with the naming convention <filename_001.jpg, filename_002.jpg and filename_003.jpg>, we were then able to export them.

Within the Adobe After Effects software application, by selecting
[file import]
[file, [ Select <the first filename_001.jpg from the sequence,
...then ( in options), tick the select JPEG sequence]

<OK>

Adobe After Effects then sets up a new project within each frame as JPEG file.
We then need to set up each image to take up to 2 frames to slow it down when replaying it as an animation.

[Composition]
select [new composition]… (This is the new composition tab, not from the selection itself).
Ensure that the frame rate is set to 25 per seconds.

The precise timing of the animation is done at the bottom of this drop-down menu, and usually a rate of approximately 12 images per second as comfortable for most people, therefore set up the duration of the animation to say 10 seconds overall.

<OK>

Hover over the new series import above the new composition you have just created, and right click on the new series import.
Select [Interpret Footage]
                [Main] .... (Change the frame rate to 25 per second).
                 and loop this to say 100 times,
<OK>

Then click and drag your new project sequence down into the timeline [i.e. the new JPEG sequence] towards the bottom right area of Adobe AE.

Towards the left of the timeline, click on the timeline menu [3 horizontal lines]
select "column" and ensure the stretch function is ticked.

Then by using the stretch percentage bar you can slow the animation down by extending the timeline to say 200 or 300% or even slower if necessary.

[Now you need to render the output]

The new persona web application requires both a low resolution and a high-resolution version which can be created through Apple QuickTime.

In order to do this, [select the timeline], go to "composition."
and then
[Add to the Render Queue] ... / alternatively use control M for the same function.

Moving through the next operations in an anticlockwise direction over the next choices, start by selecting the "output to" <enter a new file name>
then
select [output module]: QuickTime, <a submenu appears, and within the [format options] it is necessary to check that the output is set to application proRes 1080 P 25.

<OK>
<OK>

select [render settings]: Best settings, again a new submenu pops up and select "timespan" as <length of composition>,
<OK>.

You are then able to render the whole composition by selecting the [Render] button on the right-hand side of the timeline.

A QuickTime format.MOV file is then created.

Find and then double-click on the new.MOV file (it should be pointed out that you need to be using a fully equipped Apple Mac for this to work, as there may be some compatibility with Microsoft Windows and the Apple software, which is not loaded as standard on those later machines).

On an Apple Mac, this then opens a QuickTime sub-window. On a Mac, you can then export it to 720 pixels (720p) to make a smaller and well-compressed file.

The actual animation is complete at this stage.

Now, to set up the "persona" web sequence, you need to upload your.MOV file to the "Vimeo" website.

By using a combination of the Vimeo sites together with the Persona site builder, it is possible to create a new front end moving image to introduce yourself in the cargo collective artists website and repository.

A link to this is shown below.