SW3

=The Astral= media type="youtube" key="6eFwxZZ4Hnk?hd=1" height="480" width="803" align="center"

**Description:** This piece is supposed to sum up a visual story of going out, camping in the desert to see the Milky Way. This pieces title is supposed to be hidden and not leading to the Milky Way, and the reason I did that was to make the "climax" of the film much more effective. I wanted the Milky Way to be a surprise to the eyes as you're watching. The whole focus of this film is the Milky Way. Even though more than half of it is all in the morning, it all leads up to the Milky Way.

**Analysis:** **What were the artistic and/or cultural influences for this project?** **Who/what influenced either the composition and/or the style.** For this piece I was influenced by Jared Brandon, a wedding cinematographer who tried something different one time. He went out also to a place where light pollution was at its lowest state to be able to capture the Milky Way, and for a first trial, he did a very good job which inspired me to go out and create something like that. The style when it came to shooting the stars was influenced also by him and several other people who have done the same thing. I collected ideas from tons of other videos. I found that composing a shot for the stars with mountains or other things around it much more interesting than just shooting the stars alone. **What materials/media/processes did you use and or experiment with, and how?** I used a Nikon D5000 which is my default camera, with an 18-200mm lens. That is for pre/production. I also had a basic photo tripod with me to create the timelapses. The tripod was quite cheap so it produced a lot of shaking and I had to throw away certain shots because of how shaky they were. For post production (to edit) I used Adobe After Effects CS4. I used that program instead of using Adobe Premiere Pro. Which is the program I'm supposed to be using when doing something like that but I used After Effects because I felt I knew it more and I did not want to waste my time learning a new layout of a program when it took 11 hours to edit the whole video. **How do you think you have responded to advice and criticism during this project (and during the term), both from fellow students and the teacher. Did you actively seek advice? If so, was it useful?** Yes I was actively seeking advice for this project. This project was kind of a step up for me, and it was very different, so I had to get a lot of advice from my photography teacher Mr. Hardman who knew a lot about these kind of trips since he goes out by himself to the desert to go camping with his friends. I was also seeking advice from my uncle who knew a lot of people who did these kind of trips. It also turns out that those people knew Mr. Hardman. **Clearly explain the weaknesses/areas for improvement -** The weaknesses in this video are my day shots. They were composed poorly and were not as good as the night shots. The reason for that is when I was there I had it in my mind that I'm only there to shoot the stars. However, slowly I started to realize that I'm going to need a lot of good day shots to lead up to the stars. **Clearly explain the strengths of the piece –** The strengths of this piece is how I was actually able to capture some stars, and a faint milky way. When we reached the destination at about 5 pm, I was worried I wouldn't see any stars. At that time I saw the north star, and Venus, which is quite early for it. At about 7 pm it was all there. I liked the climax, it's my favorite part of the video. Which is the section of the stars. **What could you take through to the next project and develop further? This could be anything, from a technique to an idea, not neccessarily just the theme.** What I could develop further in the next project is perhaps a more simple type of connection since I'm going to be working with print making. I can make a print with one of my characters looking up at the stars and staring which is what I used to do all the time when I was shooting there.