Contrast, Balance, and Harmony

I thought I posted this a long time ago, but it has just been sitting here... so here it is.

This is an edited photo of my little brother Drew. The obvious contrast is between the color in the picture versus the black and white aspects. I'm not real sure why I did this, but I got a new app on the iPad and wanted to try it out. I  have grown to love this picture since, even though it is really cheesy. The picture isn't the best quality, but I feel like the harmonious part of it is that the cap fits the person who is wearing. Most people who know the movie, know the minions. And most people that know Drew think he could be a minion in his own right. They are two different things, one is a physical human while the other is a cartoon, and that is portrayed by the contrast in colors. Like two worlds merging to meet in one picture. There is balance in that everything is proportionate in the picture.

Group Design Project

My part was to create the website. I wanted it to be very simple, intuitive, but still have somewhat of a "personality." Hopefully I was able to that by following good design principles and accomplish the objective of building a sense of trust and professionalism.

http://blongshore3.wix.com/onehotcookie

Mis-en-Scene

Peaky Blinders: Season 1, Episode 6

First, a little bit about the director of this episode, Tom Harper. He was born in 1980, which means he is only 9 years older than I am; that is crazy! He is still trying to prove himself out there in show business. He has directed a lot of short films, and ,in fact, that is how he got his start. He realized he loved directing at the age of 18(1998), but really got into directing at the end of his time studying at the University. It's hard to find a lot about him out there, because he is so young and there are a few other semi-famous guys named "Tom Harper," but it seems like he is slated to be directing some more shows in the future. 

This specific scene we chose from Peaky Blinders is an intense scene! It could not have been that way without everyone's help, but Tom Harper's direction in this episode really pulls it together. I cannot help but to think that this scene was totally real and it actually happened. Tom and the other directors have made sure to try and make the actors as authentic as possible. They are known to hire real professionals (gunmen, coal miners, blacksmiths) to show the actors how their trades are really done. That gives the actors a real life example to follow to make the scenes that much more realistic. I love the way the actors are portrayed in this scene, and the way they fit in to the actual physical environment. The two main characters in this shot,Tom and Kimber, match the filthiness of the alley. The way they hold the guns and talk to each other makes me feel like I am watching two gangsters confronting one another. The poor wife in the scene acts in a way that we can all relate. We think of how the women and children would act in our lives if we were to die too young. Her pointing out the reason behind her black dress was key to the scene. Everyone knows a woman who has lost a loved and is devastated by that loss. We all know a woman who isn't afraid to tell her man when he is being a complete idiot also. I can't help but to sympathize with her when she gives that speech. A speech that I'm sure Tom Harper had to shoot a few times to get everything right and to make everything fit into place to get that kind of emotional reaction out of everybody. If i had to choose one word to describe this scene it would have to be "authentic."

Compose Your Frame (Visceral Response)

This is a picture that my sister-in-law took of my niece Hannah. This picture is not only adorable thanks to the cute subject, but it follows the rules we talked about when it comes to still composition.

Obviously the focus of the picture is one Hannah, who is not in the center of the picture. It is appealing to our eyes because she is right on the point of the bottom square of the tic-tac-toe board. The movement of her eyes(the index vector), and her laughter then take your eyes up towards Santa Clause. He is barely in the frame, but the law of closure let's us feel that it is a human and that he indeed has a head. Lastly, the diagonal rule is utilize by the ground. It's not as dynamic as horizontally placed lines, but it does fulfill the linear element of the picture.

There is a whole lot else going on in this picture with the tree, lights, presents, and decorations but our focus is where it needs to be and on the most important objects/people in the picture.

Favorite Director

I'm finding it hard to narrow it down to one director. I'm not that hard of a critic when it comes to film either. I enjoy many different genres of film and find it hard to pick just one director that I like. I will say that Vince Gilligan is one of my favorite writers and producers, but I couldn't find much about him on directing films... so I can't pick him. I'm sure he did a lot of directing on his shows, but for the sake of the exercise I'll move on to someone else.

The lucky director who wins my vote for "favorite director" is... Jared Hess. I know it's kind of a weird choice, but his movies are just soooooo dumb that they're funny. I knew other people were going to pick Speilberg, Scott, Lucas, Burton, etc. so I thought I would pick someone different. Napoleon Dynomite is one of the biggest movie surprises of all time. Nobody expected it to be so funny and widely successful, but what I think made it successful was that everybody could think of people in their lives who were like the characters in the movie. The one that I enjoyed th most was Uncle Rico. We all know of people who reminisce the glory days, and hype them up to be something way larger than they actually were. Nacho Libre was great before serving a mission in South America, but was even funnier once I could laugh at all the subtle jokes there were in that movie. He hasn't done much outside of those as far as I know of (except for something called Gentleman Broncos), but it could be safe to say that he quit while he was ahead. And for me, makes me like him even more. Not trying to milk his movies for all their worth, and losing some real fans in the process.

Design Comparison

One of my favorite bands growing up all throughout high school was Yellowcard. They burst on to the scene with the song "Ocean Avenue," and continued to rock my ears off from that moment on. I had a lot of fun listening to their albums as they released them over the years, and some of them were pretty cool to look at while others made me a little dizzy. The two images I have chosen were album covers they had, and one is pretty good while the others is pretty terrible according to Gestalt principles.

THE GOOD

This is a good design for a few reasons. The first of course are the lines. The road in the middle of the image leads you to the big bright city. It gives you closure as you look at it because it is taking you somewhere. The law of similarity makes you group the bright houses together, and you also group the white dots on the dark surface as stars in the sky. Not to mention the street lights or trees being grouped together as well, giving this the feeling of a quiet suburb outside of the noisy city. The houses were also grouped together because of their proximity.

THE BAD

This image kind of gives me anxiety, and makes me feel like I'm in an episode of the twilight zone. The "rips" on the image won't let our brains rest because it doesn't follow the law of continuity. The image is blurred which doesn't allow us to group anything together and make any sense of it. Are those trees or weird dandelions? Are they just floating there? What's the dark thing in the bottom left corner? A good image following Gestalt principles(law of similarity, closure, pragnanz, proximity) would not leave us having so many questions about the image. I get the band trying to draw focus to the name of "Lights and Sounds," but good heck! I have too much anxiety about their album cover to even enjoy listening to their music. 

Law of Similarity

Items that are similar tend to be grouped together.

Design in Identity

Design in Exhibit

Design in Convergence