A Conversation
The aim of this brief was to explore the idea of ‘A Conversation.” To start the brief my tutors gave me a mini task of choosing a news paper article and having a 3 minute and 30 conversation, in a group based on the article.
I chose the article as the housemates I were discussing it with, all drove, so we all had different opinions as to whether the man was innocent or guilty.
I felt that the conversation wasn’t honest and painted an unrealistic picture of how we usually talked.
I thought that the best way to get a true As we started to record understanding of how our conversation, we we communicated was all felt awkward and to secretly record my I chose the Huddersfield pressured. The flow of housemates, however Daily Examiner and the conversation didn’t this created ethical found a headline which feel right and was forced. issues, so it was not read “Mohammed Karani something I could insists runaway van After the conversation persue. which killed Dewsbury was finished, I listened to mum had handbrake fully it back and transcribed I was unsure as to what on.” This was a tragic it all. There was a lot of to do with the transcribed story about a van that awkward laughter and conversation at this had rolled down a hill pauses of people not point. and killed a woman. knowing what to say.
I decided to look at the individual words, instead of the text as a whole. I broke down the conversation and focused on the words. I typed them up in alphabetical order and marked down how many times the word was used. I decided to give these words to a group of people and have them create a new short story using them. The stories that they came up with were: In London there was a dodgy van that probably had a lot of money. It hit a prison and killed 42 children. It was very unfortunate. Rebecca was framed for something, which was not her fault and had to be bound in prison. “I’m innocent,” she says but no one could see. How could dodgy dad put over his message on funny man – slaughter? The innocent profession was very unfortunate. Killed kids. Think different to myself in prison. I drove to London; it was a bit dodgy because Rebecca drove. We ran down the agency where we saw Jack modelling. It was funny. A series of events that could not be more unfortunate had left Rebecca with a very
different van. The van was definitely dodgy, “It was Mohammed,” she realised. All the money in the van was not his. It was framed. Prison maybe for her. Jack was an electrician, he was funny. One time he didn’t put his handbrake on in the van. It rolled down the hill and killed a woman. That was not funny. An electrician realised he had killed somebody with Rebecca, after he pushed them off a hill. They then ran off and framed someone else for it. Rebecca was going to see Jack in her car. She saw Jack on Facebook and he was funny. They drove to London so Jack could go to a modelling agency. Little Rebecca was struck down by Mohammed, 43, who rolled his car behind her in London. When he realised, Mohammed wouldn’t put a newspaper on her and drove off. At this point I decided to experiment with different ways to create short stories.
I decided to give someone a newspaper article about the Richard Branson rocket that crashed. I asked them to read the article and I took it away once they had finished, and asked them to write as much as the could remember. I repeated this with a few more people. I was the unsure as to what to do with the pieces of text, so I used the words to create an image. The concept reminded me of the game ‘Chinses Whispers,’ so I decided to explore this further.
1 . ) V i r g i n Atlantic test drive to space blew up. Experts say this would always happen. “It was Russian roulette which blew up.” The rocket SpaceShip2 cost £300million. 39 year old died. Branson not going to give it up, or the death would have been pointless. 2.) Experts told Virgin their Virgin Galactic rocket was unsafe. However, virgin boss Richard Branson ignored the safety fears, 39 year old, father of two died in one of its test flights. Virgin were told it was like playing Russian Roulette, it was only a matter of time before it exploded due to their engines. Virgin Galactic were planning to send up their passenger flights in 2013. 3.) Experts told Virgin Galactic that their experimental spaceplane would not fly and was dangerous, it has been revealed in the aftermath of the crash that killed one pilot and seriously injured another. Dr Caroline Thompson-Knight had previously voiced fears that SpaceShip Two would crash, and had published a paper on the subject. However, her fears were ignored by Virgin bosses. The plane was due to start commercial flights in December 2013. Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson said they would not go blindly forth from the accident as it would be insensitive to those involved. A second pilot remains in hospital with serious injuries. 4) Sir Richard Branson is facing claims that his space tourism firm ignored safety concerns that resulted in the death of a pilot. Co-pilot Altkins, 39, father of two died Friday after the shuttle he was in exploded mid-air. A second pilot is hospitalised with serious injuries. Experts do claim that they had warned in 2010 that the engine used was unreliable and had previously killed 3 workers on them. They described it as playing russian roulette with the safety of the crew. One British expert released a research paper on the dangers of the fuel used in this particular engine and contacted the company with his paper but received no reply. It is unclear where the future of space tourism lies after this incident but Branson claims he will continue his dream whilst learning from the mistakes of this tra gedy.
I experimented with the childrens game, “Chinese Whispers.” I asked one of my housemates to read a newspaper article about a man that had fallen into a tigers enclosure at a zoo. After they had finished reading, I took the newspaper away and asked them to write down as much as they could remember. Since I had taken them off guard, this wasn’t very much. In the style of ‘Chinese Whispers,’ I then asked another housemate to read what had just been written, once they had finished I then asked them to write what they could remember, which was less.
I continued this until I had 4 pieces of text.
Peoples comments. Zoos comments.
Which were:
3.) Tiger in a zoo. Man jumps into enclosure. Gets ragged about by the tiger. Rips him to shreds. Your comments? Zoos comments?
1.) Man jumps into enclosure after being repeatedly told not to. The tiger, endangered in the wild, comes over and after a few minutes pounces. In the process, the alarm s going off to alert keepers. The tiger eventually grabs him by the neck and rags him about. Onlookers comments. Zoo comments. 2.) Man jumps into tiger enclosure. An endangered creature in the wild, after a few minutes it comes over to him and starts to attack him. The tiger grabs him by the neck and rags him about.
4.) Tiger in a zoo. Man jumps into enclosure. Man gets ripped apart. Your comments? Zoos comments? This reminded me of a snellen eye test, so I decided to write the stories out in the same style. At each sentence the words decreased in size, using the same values as an eye test: 152, 130, 108, 87, 65, 43, 33, 21, 15 and 9.
I decided not to experiment further with this piece of work, as I felt that there wasn’t much more that could be done. So I looked at other ways to create short stories.
I decided to look at the song lyrics, ‘I Predict a Riot.’ I deconstructed the song and used the individual words like earlier. I then gace the words to my housemates and asked them to create short stories using them, which were: 1.) Fat policeman frozen in town. The man tried walking to town, before Smeaton left. 2.) My friend the policeman wasn’t pretty, girls said he looked scary. Anybody walking the wrong way, predicted he attacks people. 3.) A friend of a friend was a policeman, he was pretty, I predict lairy. He scrabbled around with no clothes on, to borrow a condom. Not very sensible. 4.) Walking through town is quite scary, a man in a tracksuit attacks me, he was lairy and not very pretty. 5.) The riot was a bit gory, a friend of a friend he got beaten, he was a man in a tracksuit, he was a policeman. 6.) I predict if it wasn’t for chips they’d be lairy and scrabble for a condom, they’re not very pretty. 7.) An old friend looked the wrong way at a fat policeman. It wasn’t very sensible. Things got lairy and not very pretty.
8.) Smeaton was watching girls scrabble in a taxi, it wasn’t very pretty. 9.) Smeaton saw Scrabble for a pound, he got it and left. With these stories I decided to explore shadow and light in typography. I started by printing out one of the stories. I then used a craft knife to cut out the letters. I used different backgrounds, such as the outdoors. I also shined a torch behind to see if it was legible in the shadow.
SMEATON SAW SCRABBLE FOR A POUND. HE GOT IT AND LEFT.
I continued to experiment with shadow and light. I looked at overlaying paper. I copied the same piece of text but on the second, cut out different sections. This is so some areas were bolder than others, once the paper was held up in the light.
I decided to go back to my origional idea of using a recorded conversation, so I found another newspaper article. This one was about two hookers who had been killed by a Britsh man, in Hong Kong, I though this article would appeal to my flatmates childish side and would be an interesting conversation. I recorded the conversation for 3 minutes. Afterwards, I transcribed the conversation and again deconstructed it to just use the individual words. I then gave these to my housemates to create some short stories. Which were:
1.) I was watching the news and there was a dangerous man, watching a teacher in her window. 2.) A British Jew planted a dangerous stripper in Huddersfield. He was a psychopath. 3.) Evidence says, a guy didn’t know prostitutes like Holly started killing British triads. 4.) A teacher was killed with a knife, by a British man in Huddersfield. Her daughters were prostitutes. 5.) Bob could not swim, so he was going to get a teacher.
6.) It was obvious that the man was watching two prostitutes in his window.
In the workshop, he also briefly mentioned Alison Carmichael, so I decided to research her more.
7.) Someone said that an old man was dangerous.
When reading the stories back, I found that they were quite childlike and basic. I decided to implement this into the typgography so I looked at things a child would do and use, such as; cutting and sticking, stickers, finger painting and playdough.
8.) A fifteen year old girl killed her teacher, and planted the evidence on a prostitute. 9.) Bob was laughing at Holly’s hair, she didn’t like it. In a recent studio workshop with Nick we were looking at typographic posters. I decided that this would be the best way to represent the stories.
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