Self-directed: "Out of control" - Initial footage

Here is the initial unedited footage I took to see what would be a good reaction to use in my project.

Vodka

Onion

Chilli

Lemon

Balloon bursting

Reading something upsetting.

Self-directed: "Out of control" - Research continued

Bill Viola

Here I am looking another photographer that looks at facial expression as well. 

I really like how his work focuses on the emotion/body language of the subject to tell the story rather than anything in the back ground. I am definitely going to have a plain back ground for my images so that I don't take away from what their facial expression is saying.

Self-directed: "Out of control" - Research on expression

Here I have looked and some background theory into facial expression, and looked at videos of what makes people pull faces.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081229080859.htm

http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/misctext/inner_outer.html

http://www.bodylanguageexpert.co.uk/study-facial-expressions.html

http://www.esn-network.com/facial_reactions.html

http://www.affective-sciences.org/system/files/biblio/Ellen_article.pdf

Self-directed: Out of control facial expression

From all my previous explorations I have come to the conclusion that I want to focus my project on "out of control" facial expressions, as I find these most interesting and amusing. As "out of control" facial expressions are not posed and the best faces are pulled for only a fraction of a second I have decided that illustrating them would not be the best way to capture the expression. 

As there are so many different faces pulled when a person is out of control, and there is such a difference from being able to control your facial expression to loss of control, I feel the best way to show and express these expressions is to produce them in the form of a flip book. I think a flip book is more interesting and interactive than a single image of what I consider to be the best face pulled. Gives the audience a chance to look at points in between their controlled face and the most expressive face, a chance to look at it a a motion and even the chance to look at it flicking backward for their own amusement.

After speaking with tutors and a gentleman in the visual resources work rooms I have decided to record my subject expressions in HD Video, that way I'm capturing more frames per second than any still photos could, making sure that I don't miss out on any faces pulled in the fractions of seconds they will be reacting. I has to be HD so make sure I have the best quality images for my flip book.


From asking different people what makes them pull out control faces, I found that the majority said: laughter, crying, eating lemon, being shocked, sneezing, eating chilli, eating raw onion, drinking straight spirits and feeling pain. I intent to recreate as many of these expressions using these stimuli as possible.

Self-Directed: Facial expression - Research on how to do the out come

Here I am researching Methods on making books and flip books.

make easy photo flip book

flip book about a dog

Research on flipbook binding 1

From this research I have decided to bind my books by stapling the pages together with a heavy duty stapler. I also need to try and make sure that the amount of pages I use is kept to a minimum to make sure that there aren't too many pages to staple and to keep the flip books short and sweet.

Self-directed: Facial expression - Research into methods

From the sessions with Ed, I explored the possibility of producing my work through the form of a print screen, fanzine. This opportunity meant I learnt how to print screen, which I had only had one go at before and didn't really remember how to do it. It also made me think about how my pages maybe lain out, what paper I would want to use and how I would want  my covers to look. 

I used this chance to look more into animal facial expressions side of my brief that I had said was an option to explore. A personal interest in sharpie art made me decide to originally draw all my illustrations free hand, in sharpie pen, to be used as the images for my fanzine. The images I used to draw from are a mixture of internet and my own photos. For my own photos, I specifically went out to Heeley city farm to give me a little archive of my own images so that I wouldn't just be steeling from other people and to get images that are more what I am trying to show.

As you can see in the above picture, I did the covers in a range of colours to show a bit of personality, there is no difference in the content of each colour of books.

Self-directed: Facial expression - Research continued

As I am not completely certain on how I am going to portray the facial expressions, I decided to look into the illustrating different faces, and trying out different mediums for illustrating them.

Below, I explored some different styles on photoshop to give the images a different feel.