PROJECT EVALUATION

The aim of this project was to create an online exhibition inspired by Gothic horror stories from 18^th century, specifically those written by Edgar Allan Poe. The exhibitions main focus is a creative short film, the film features visuals of editorial characterizations based on characters from Poe’s most well known stories.  As well as a short film, a gallery will be placed on the exhibition in order to get a closer look at the characters created. The project is to appeal to a very broad audience including male and female viewers aged 20 plus. It’s an exhibition to shock, inspire and excite the mind.

Throughout this project I have pushed my creative boundaries and have developed a variety of technical skills that I didn’t believe would be possible for me at the beginning. I’ve managed to edit a short film singlehandedly, create a website to feature the film and gained even more knowledge in my photo editing. These are skills I can hold onto for any future projects I may have and support me while I grow as an artist. During the last few months I have learnt a lot about the time and effort that goes into projects similar to Velvet Bones.

Velvet Bones gave me the opportunity to test my skills as an artist; it’s been more challenging than I expected it would be and there have been a handful of times when I questioned my place within this industry. Being around so many creative minds makes you doubt your ideas, however this project has taught me to not make comparisons and to be confident in what you do. The exhibition has turned out to be better than I ever imagined and I feel proud that the concept was all down to me, I had a very small team of people to help me and it has certainly had issues along the way.

The main problems I had during the past few months’ involved reliability of others that had agreed to be involved in my project. Though it was stressful for me at the time it has helped me to understand the importance of preparation and how back up plans are essential. I feel I managed my time well initially and stuck to my schedule, I even had backups for more important roles such as a photographer and film producer. However, once more issues started to occur I lost track of my schedule, which resulted in major set backs within my project. I began to feel that I couldn’t trust anyone else to help me, which is why I ended up doing a lot of the work myself.

Reflecting on this, I should have made more of an effort to find contacts earlier on in order for me to build up relationships, meaning a higher level of trust. This would have enabled me to keep on track with my schedule. Organisation and preparation was my downfall during this entire project. I let stress and worry effect me too much and I found myself pushing the work I had to do to the back of my mind. This resulted in me not attending as many 1-1 sessions with Sharon as I didn’t feel I had anything to share.  I do regret the decision to not see Sharon often; she always motivates me so it would have helped me in the long run.

The construction of the website was also challenging. Creating a website is something I have only done on simplistic sites such as Wix so learning from scratch on Adobe Muse was very different. I have to admit, I avoided starting my website because I was worried and unsure about how I wanted it to look. I also felt I needed my shoots to be complete to work them into the layout but I now know I could have built the site without. What I should have done is researched other websites more to get an idea of the types of things I could create using Muse. It would have been interesting to incorporate Gifs to make the pages look more visually pleasing to look at. What I have learnt is that you don’t need any set in stone ideas when it comes to building a site. It’s useful to play around so you can discover what works and what doesn’t.

The part of my project that I’m most pleased with is my short film. It has the vibe I was hoping for when I initially thought about creating a film. I love the blank, white background, as it doesn’t draw attention from the characters but still pops in an editorial way. I had problems with my film producer from the start of my project and struggled to find a replacement for him, so I asked my photographer Sam if he felt confident to film small clips as well as shooting stills. It worked out well in the end, as I didn’t have to worry about organising a time that would suit 2 different people as he was able to do both for me.  Sam is a good friend of mine so he was easy to work with and very familiar with my project and understood the type of footage I wanted for my film. There were occasions when I had to leave Sam to direct a shoot alone while I got another model in makeup but I trusted he would get what I wanted out of the shoot.

The only thing I would change about the film would be the lighting. I edited the clips to the best of my ability, though you can definitely see the difference in colour in certain shots. It’s a minor detail for me however, as I feel the end result is great. Doing more test shoots with the lighting on film would have been useful for me, that way I could have made a note on the lighting set up used to make it consistent in the film. I really enjoyed editing the film, I have a small amount of knowledge on editing so it didn’t take me long to get the hang of using a new editing programme. My only regret is not starting the edit sooner as I could have gone to John for help with the off colour in some of the clips.

I’m really glad I decided to base my project around Edgar Allan Poe, it’s been so interesting and I would love to continue with this project now that the degree is finished. It would be great to work on it more without the pressure of deadlines so I could take my time with it.  I would like to research more about Poe’s life as well as his stories and create a film with more characters; I would like to go even further with the designs of the makeup/hair and styling to make them more editorial. Moving forward I want to take my creativity to the next level, I need to be more experimental in my spare time and stop being so afraid of feeling like I’m not good enough.

Improvements with characters designs could be improved massively. I was too safe with my makeup choices, which is down to the fact I wasn’t very organised and I improvised a lot. Improvisation can work but I feel in this case it wasn’t the best way to go about creating this project. If I were to do sufficient research to gain inspiration the character looks could have been much more interesting and eye catching. Moving forward I want to improve myself in this area, particularly as I want to create a project like this again in the future.

Overall I have enjoyed creating my online exhibition. Despite the ups and downs I feel proud of what I have created. The main thing I would change would to be more organised but this is something I can change for the future within the makeup industry.  I look forward to doing more projects like this in the future, as I don’t believe this is the end for Velvet Bones.