Wednesday, January 25, 2012

thumbnails and rambling.

Beware, there's going to be a lot of text in this post.



Thumbnails for two projects for senior port. The idea for the top one is that the viewer first sees this really beautiful, delicious-looking mass of ramen and soup and ramen toppings....and the eye travels down the image to the sad reality of a college student working at their desk in the dark, spotlit by their desk lamp and eating cup noodle.

The grouping is different ideas for another image I want to make; I saw a couple at a restaurant sitting across the table from each other. Their table was covered with plates and bowls of food, just for the two of them. Instead of focusing on the meal and/or conversing (like couples usually do at restaurants?), they both had identical white iphones sitting in front of them on the table and they both were hunched over the phones doing whatever (checking their email/fb/news) and kind of absentmindedly picking at the food and paying no attention to each other at all.

I'm not really sure how best to show this. I like the overhead shot because you can see the phones and the food and it seems like the most interesting view, but you kind of lose the body language and the visual of two people hunched over the table. I like the the one in the middle because you do get the body language, but it would be hard to make the phones noticeable and I wouldn't get to draw food, haha. 

The one to the far right is kind of how I saw the scene in person, but I think it's pulled too far back. I like the look of the long narrow one at the bottom, I guess I'd have to play around with that one. The top one is kind of fun and cinematic, but I feel like it maybe focuses too much attention on one figure. Maybe that's not an important issue.

Anyone have any suggestions?

3 comments:

  1. Heya Anna, the first one is awesome! and I can't wait to see you paint it! its going to be a really fun piece. As for the second project, I think I enjoy the upshot one, where you see the phones. Maybe to show that they're too busy playing with their phones you can have all the courses out and are starting to get cold while the course that is about to be served is steaming and right out of the kitchen. Not sure if i explained it well enough but you can ask me in person. Hope that helps!

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  2. i took a while to think about this... i do want to see the food and the iphones; the details in the figures, besides maybe their lackluster, disinterested facial expressions, matter less. i suppose, out of the ones here, i like the lengthy horizontal composition because it shows everything without excess negative space (large window, etc.), i'd imagine the couple's faces cropped above their brow so you can see their eyes directed at their iphones. the perspective could be at a bit of an angle so the delicious food, and perhaps also the iphone screens, can be seen more fully and therefore have more impact, especially since they seem to be vital points of this image. the angle might be awkwardly difficult and difficultly (it's a real word!) awkward.

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  3. Nice, this sounds cool!
    My favorite is the one Jane said, because the focus is on the action of using the phones. Or if you want, you could try a split screen, mixing the overhead shot & the from-the-table view....like a "juxtaposition" kind of thing.

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