Project 4 – Week 13 – Connected but alone

This is my second and final draft for my final video. The concept and execution is pretty much the same as mentioned in the reflection for the first draft. However I’ve made a few changes.

Firstly I shot some more footage. The footage in my previous draft was all with blue and red lighting. In this draft, I’ve added some footage with dark green lighting as well as it gives a feel of irritation and loneliness. Apart from that I’ve reedited the whole video to give it a better flow. In the last draft, many shots were repeating a lot. I’ve made sure this didn’t happen this time around. This final draft is more dramatic and will give you a better idea of my concept. One major change in this draft of the video is that I’ve changed the background music which is the essential thing to get the feel of the video. The background music in the last draft was good but I kind of realized that it didn’t go with the overall flow and mood of the video so I changed it to something more soft and depressing. The current music goes along well with the flow. Also one more major change is that I’ve added crowd noises and people talking in the background. These are two tracks. One of them was recorded by me using my phone on the street. I added theese because it makes the loneliness of the subject more dramatic. He can hear people socializing, talking, hanging out but he has no one to talk to in person. He can just sit there and listen to it.

Project 4 – Week 11 – Connected but alone

This is the first draft of my final video. This is a continuation of the idea of the sketch that I had chosen for the Project 3 presentation. Our affordance was connectivity which means the ability to connect any two things or people. In my video, I’ve tried to show disconnectivity instead, or in simple words, if there was no connectivity. There’s no doubt mobile phones have made our lives very easy. They are the basic tool for connectivity these days. You can get connected to anyone anywhere 24/7. Especially with the introduction of smartphones and social media, there has been a huge evolution in the world of connectivity.

In this video of mine I’ve tried to show how mobile phones make us connected to the world but at the same time we are disconnected. Since the connectivity becoming so easy, we’ve taken it for granted. We don’t make the effort to meet people in person. In many cases we just text the other person or talk to them on Facebook when in reality we hardly talk to them when we see them. We live in a pretentious world where we think we have many friends but we don’t.

For this video, I’ve used a wine glass as an inanimate subject. This gives the video an overall dramatic feel. Since my subject cannot emote, I’ve moved it around, played around with the lighting and my mobile camera and filters to achieve the overall gloomy feel of the video which shows how lonely the subject is. The background music is according to the mood.

Project 3 Sketch 3

This sketch shows how an elevator can take us to any level of a building very quickly by just a touch of a button within a few seconds. It is such a blessing for us. In this sketch of mine I have tried to compare this with the connectivity of a mobile phone. Even in mobile phones, we can connect to any  person anywhere with a touch and very quickly. Both of these are because of the advancements in technology.

This elevator is in my student residence building. I use it daily but it was only after I started working on my affordance and sketches, that I realized this concept which is quite fascinating. I used my phone to record it while I was going from the first floor to the ground floor.

Project 3 Sketch 2

This was another one of my experimental sketches where I played around with a subject and light. The subject used over here was a small house shaped toy kind of thing. I told a friend to move around the light to make it appear as if it is sunlight, while I used my camera to record.

The basic use of this sketch is to show human emotions thrtough a house because a house represents a family and sunshine represents happiness or energy. What I’ve tried to show through this sketch is that how mobile phone connectivity spreads postitivty all around and how it is very useful for us. Family members stay in touch even when they are not together. Mobile phones have made our lives easier and happier in a way.

Project 3 Sketch 8

I recorded this sketch while I was coming down after some work in the RMIT building no.5. I was basically rushing down the stairs because I was in a hurry. I decided to record my feet movement while I was coming down. The sketch that came out in the end was quite interesting.

Because of connectivity, our lives have become so fast and rushed that we don’t have time for anything else to do. This sketch also gives a feeling of impatience as the subject seems to get out of the building as soon as possible and at any cost. This can also be compared to mobile connectivity where everyone is in a hurry for everything, whether its talking to their loved ones, business conferencing or texting. Not only connectivity, this is something which describes our everyday lives these days in general.

Let me make it clear over here that I was not running so fast. I increased the speed of the video using an in built app to give it a more dramatic feeling and relate to connectivity more.

Project 3 Sketch 15

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The building seen here in this sketch is the student residence I’m currently staying at. I could see a lot of apartments from where I was standing while recording this sketch. I was thinking of recording some unique sketches. Then I started playing around with the zooming feature on my phone camera to get the cool effect of zooming in and zooming out.

What I wanted to show through this sketch is a concept I have discussed earlier as well. There’s no doubt that connectivity has made our lives much easier but since we are always connected to people through our phone and not in person, we are still kind of lonely even when we’re connected or even when we’re around many people. We think we’re near them but we are far far away.

Project 3 Sketch 14

I recorded this sketch a few days back while waking down the street. It was something very random at that time for me. It’s a tree with many branches and a broad trunk. I only wanted the tree in the video, not the surroundings so I had to record it in a vertical position. By the different branches that all join in to one huge trunk, I have tried to show people from all over the globe, from different countries, races are a part of a huge network through connectivity. We don’t even realize how close we are to one another because of this. We can get in touch with any person at any time very easily.

Project 3 Sketch 13

This sketch is from last week. We had this event called Amazing Race at uni which was based on the popular reality show with the same name. The concept was pretty much the same. This was the last task of the race. There were two wooden planks and five people had to work as a team to walk using those planks as seen in the video from one point to another. It was quite tough to do it. All the five people are connected by those planks on a single platform and they need to work together to move forward.

This is how I am relating this sketch to mobile connectivity where people are connected through a medium and then they co ordinate or sort out any issues or problems between them to move ahead.

Project 3 Sketch 12

Connectivity takes place because of connections and bonds. I was wandering outside the uni building the other day when I saw hundreds of pipes of all sizes. I believe most of them were for water and some of them for the protection of electrical wires but they were all over the place connected to each other and it was fascinating to watch. Their connectivity is actually helping us.

This sketch basically tells us how, if we’re connected, we can help each other and be there for each other whenever we want. Being together is better than being alone.

Project 3 Sketch 11

This sketch shows a person smiling and showing happiness while using his mobile phone to connect to his family who is in another country. He is miles away from them but still near them in a way. This sketch tells us about the little perks of connectivity, how it can put a smile on your face instantly and sometimes unexpectedly. You may be at work, out of country or at uni but you can always stay in touch with people with your mobile phone using its own cellular network or social media.

I changed the colours of this video to black and white using an app to give it a more dramatic feel.