Today I begin my research into my visual essay due later this year , I already know what I want to do next year , which is web design , the main reason being that it incorporates the other passion that I have ; graphic design , I love the idea of creating exactly what you want from starch , if you mix that with the interactivity of web design , then you have the potential of creating something special every single time , and this is where the visual essay comes into play , I have create the essay which visually shows my passion for both mediums. I started research into isotope international picture language. There was a exhibition at the V&A museum in London , so i decided to take a look.

Isotype is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form. It was first known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics between 1925 and 1934. The founding director of this museum, Otto Neurath, was the initiator and chief theorist of the Vienna Method. The term Isotype was applied to the method around 1935, after its key practitioners were forced to leave Vienna by the rise of Austrian fascism.

The first rule of Isotype is that greater quantities are not represented by an enlarged pictogram but by a greater number of the same-sized pictogram. In Neurath’s view, variation in size does not allow accurate comparison (what is to be compared – height/length or area?) whereas repeated pictograms, which always represent a fixed value within a certain chart, can be counted if necessary. Isotype pictograms almost never depicted things in perspective in order to preserve this clarity, and there were other guidelines for graphic configuration and use of colour. The best exposition of Isotype technique remains Otto Neurath’s book International picture language (1936).

Visual education” was always the prime motive behind Isotype, which was worked out in exhibitions and books designed to inform ordinary citizens (including schoolchildren) about their place in the world. It was never intended to replace verbal language; it was a “helping language” always accompanied by verbal elements. Otto Neurath realized that it could never be a fully developed language, so instead he called it a “language-like technique”.

What i can take from this is how pictures , images , symbols can be used to represent information instead of words, this vitally important in the whole of web and graphic design , and more and more innovative web sites are using less and less words just using  images , sounds , emotion to interact with the costumer.  



The program i decided to use for sound editing will be audacity. Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD. Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. Mazzoni now works at Google, but is still the main developer and maintainer of Audacity, with help from many others around the world. The latest release of Audacity is 1.3.12, a beta, released on 1 April 2010.As of 29 October 2010, it was the 10th most popular download from SourceForge.net, with 72 million downloads. Audacity won the SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Award for Best Project for Multimedia.

I have had previous experience with the program when i used to make mini animation films a few years back , since it is the easiest to use it would only make sense for me to use the program.

Thought i would give you an update on how things are coming with  the project and it is a case of so far so good, all the roles have been sorted and we have a schedule to go by, giving dates and times.  The title of the script we have been given is called “Herds” and it tells the story of a mysterious character  who turns up to the front door of another character, and begins to rummage through his apartment. What we have decided to do is set up an online blog  ,  (http://projectintruder.blogspot.com/) this way all the crew member can have their input at any time of the day/night  , we also have an online script which can edited by any crew member below is an example of this: (The yellow text is my input)

 1 EXT. DOORSTEP. NIGHT 1

TITLE: Herds

Knocking on the door MONTY skips from foot to foot - What am thinking of is a loud and booming bang , to really show that  yes , we know somewhere is there ,  but the tone of the bang would  portray to the audience that he is not just your regular visitor .

As AGNEW opens the door Monty slips past him, entering
Maybe this should happen really quickly and make Agnew seem so confused that he just goes along with it
What am thinking here is some abietant background noise , so if we are filming in halls , we could have some playing some music from thier room , so its more of a - for a lack of a better word- "booming" sound.

MONTY
Bloody hell you took your time. It's a bit
quiet though better be early than be late,
never got into the fashionably late bullshit
did you?
Camera following them to the kitchen
With Monty clearly just walking quickly past. Agnew stood at the door for a second before following acting shocked.

AGNEW
Who are you here for?

MONTY
No reason we can't crack these open though is
there?

Monty holds the bag up and clinks the bottles together - bottles of wine , maybe? , easiser to distingush on film then cans of beer.


2 INT. KITCHEN. NIGHT 2

Monty and Agnew sit at the table. They are drinking beer
Agnew taking small sips, clearly not at ease with the situation. Frowns at Monty regularly. 
Perhaps a moment of awkward slience with only the out of range background "booming" music can be heard. 

MONTY
Not a lot in the way of snacks at this party
Searching the cupboards, possibly on tiptoes, not the fridge yet. Don't really want repeating actions/shots.
Banging of shutting cupboards
AGNEW
Is there a party? Lads don't tell me anything. Had work after lectures so...

MONTY
Where's everybody else?
Turns around on his heel before asking, clearly not listening to Agnew with his back to him beforehand.

AGNEW
I'll text them now. Are you a mate of Johnny Johnny's mate then?
Agnew rummages around in his pocket and pulls out his phone. Then looks up to ask the question.
Sounds of keys in the pocket maybe , rustling of crunched up paper.
MONTY
Don't know Johnny
Agnew looks down at his phone again. Then up again to say...

as you can see everyone is already edit or have there input in some way or another . the sound program i have decided to use is audacity.

So we are back and i start off with the subject which i the most issues with, Film. But this time it is a little bit different from what we did last term , this time , we have been given a script and each been given roles within our group such as director , editor , producer etc etc, i believe that this gives better structure to the whole project as member cannot say , i wasn’t such on what to do and still “cash” when the final product is finish. My role is the sound designer.  Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring and manipulating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including film, theatre, music recording, live music performance, and computer game software development. Sound design most commonly involves the manipulation of previously composed audio, such as previously recorded music and sound effects. In some instances it may also involve the composition or manipulation of audio to create a desired effect or mood. A sound designer is one who practices the art of sound design.

My main requirements are:

 – Door knock

- Monty flicks on the stereo to enlighten the mood, so a techno unsigned track would be handy.

- Possibly a button switch sound.

- Fridge door opening/closing

- Cupboard doors opening and closing.

- Front door opening and shutting

 Blog under re-construction.

If your wondering why I haven’t been posting since we have gotten back Is because I am under the process of completely redesigning my blog , and it is a time taking process , I don’t want to give away too much , but I have been inspired by the old 8 and 16bit era of gaming back in the during the 80 and early 90’s , and due to me being a bit of a perfectionist I want to get right into every single way , I should get it done hopefully by the end of the week.